Facing Armageddon
by Rage of The Hero
Summary: A skilled but neurotic hunter is given command of The 21st Unit, better known as The Twenty-Worst. When a new Maverick, with disturbing power and a plan to "purify" the world, is activated, how will the 21st stop him? Rated M for language and violence.
1. Lonely Flight

So, this is the first chapter of my first big piece of writing.

As much as I hate to admit it, this chapter is little more than a glorified character bio.

Read, Review, and Enjoy people.

**Blaze Setsura, Her "Father", The "Asshole Pilot", and The "Twenty-Worst" Unit © Me**

**All other characters © Capcom (Please don't sue me.)

* * *

**

Blaze Setsura sat in the empty passenger compartment of the transport, desperately wishing that the lights were actually working. As the sun continued to set on the distant Arctic horizon, the shadow on the floor continued to creep closer and closer to her, and she had to kept inching farther and farther toward the back of the cabin. She also wished that the pilot would let her sit in the cockpit. There was an unoccupied copilot's seat in the cockpit, but the pilot had refused, with an uncivil choice of words, to let her sit in it. Blaze had grudgingly decided to return to the cabin, hoping the trip would be over before the sun disappeared, not to rise again for several weeks at the shortest. As the sun set, however, Blaze found herself wanting to knock on the cockpit door and beg to come in, even if she had to sit on the floor. She had a feeling that the cockpit would be even darker, but it still wouldn't be as bad if she weren't alone…

Even if the company consisted solely of one asshole pilot.

Blaze tried not to think about the darkness, and reflected on how the hell she had gotten herself here. She had been with the Maverick Hunters for years, having joined up just before the Sigma Rebellion. She had earned herself a combat rank of Class A, and recently had been granted the military rank of Commander, and her psyche evaluation described her as intelligent, cautious, quick thinking, and obedient.

Her combat abilities were effective, if not slightly unorthodox. She was a fast runner, almost as fast as the famous Zero. When he had been testing her for a spot in Unit 0, they had raced on foot, and she had trailed behind by only a few meters, though she found herself panting from the exertion. Her strength and endurance were below average, but they got her through most combat situations short of sieges. Her armor and frame were built from a lighter weight alloy than was commonly used for combat reploids, which allowed her to use her great speed and unusual flexibility. The latter in particular proved incredibly useful in hand to hand combat, as she was skilled in several styles of martial arts, some of which a less flexible reploid couldn't handle.

But by far her greatest asset was her advanced neural net, which granted faster reflexes than nearly any other reploid ever built. It also granted her far greater senses of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and even touch, as well as the ability to maintain equilibrium in any position: she could easily balance on a needle point with one finger. Not that she would, since that would be unpleasant for her finger, even if it didn't puncture her artificial skin.

Her buster weapon took the form of a revolver-style handgun. Many found the revolver appearance oddly archaic, or even laughable, but it allowed Blaze to store and fire six fully charged shots in sequence, although the projectiles covered less area than a typical buster cannon. The smaller shot actually meant the power was far more focused, however, so shot-for-shot she could match most opponents. Blaze had perfected the technique of firing all six shots in the shortest space of time possible, firing what looked like a single segmented beam that could do tremendous damage if it hit. She was highly skilled with the weapon, and was somewhat renowned for trick shots and a fast draw, capable of drawing and aiming the weapon in the same amount of time most reploids with built-in cannons did, which to human eyes seemed instantaneous.

Her most treasured possession, however, was her unique katana, which was always at her side. The weapon was an inheritance from her creator, whose family had had the sword for more generations than anybody could count. It was an unusually sharp blade, made of a strange metal crystal that as of yet nobody have ever successfully identified, and had the unique ability to diffuse plasma energy of almost all types, including that of beam sabers. This gave Blaze a massive advantage in sword fights, and well, ALL fights in which she wielded it. The only exceptions to this effect were the weapons of X and Zero, which had special properties of their own. Still, even without the special blade, Blaze was a fearsome swordfighter, and practiced whenever she could.

All in all, Blaze seemed like an exemplary hunter.

"So why the _guai_ am I being transferred to the 21st Unit?" Blaze asked herself aloud. But she already knew the answer. "Because I'm _tian di wu yohn_."

Blaze had been a member of nearly every Hunting Unit in the organization. She had even been considered for spots in both The 17th Elite and The 0 Special Ops. She had been shifted between Units so often that the phrase "Blaze sure gets around" had become something of a dirty joke within the less civilized groups of Hunters. The REAL reason for all the transfers was that she had more inner demons than hell, and none of the Unit Leaders wanted to deal with them. Blaze had never met another non-Maverick with even HALF as many emotional and mental problems as she had.

She glanced at the shadow on the floor, and slid a bit farther down the single bench away from it, recalling the first of these problems: an intense fear of darkness. Such an irrational fear was a serious detriment to her capabilities as a Hunter, and the impediment only grew as the list continued.

She also had an extremely low threshold for pain. In an occupation where getting hurt, sometimes critically, was routine, this was unhelpful in the strongest sense. This was an unfortunate side effect of her advanced neural net. With all of her senses so heightened beyond normal levels, she felt pain much more acutely than other reploids. In a best-case scenario, this merely caused disorientation from sensory overload. In a worst-case scenario, she could go into shock from wounds another reploid could shake off. The above-average aversion to pain that had developed as a result didn't help matters, but the physical disadvantage of it was far worse than the mental.

Then there was her anti-social nature. She didn't like people. In fact, she downright detested them. It wasn't anything personal, usually: She just couldn't stand other people, reploid or human. This had led to some trust problems in previous Units, in both her trust of others and others' trust of her.

This came into direct conflict with another problem: Her susceptibility to intense loneliness. As uncomfortable as she was to be around others, being alone actually frightened her. This constantly threatened her ability to perform solo missions, which was frequently required of her, given her rank and level of combat proficiency.

But none of these phobias and quirks came even close to her greatest weakness: Her uncontrollable fear of dying. As a soldier, this crippled her far more than anything else, in terms of both its effect on her performance as a Hunter and its effect on her body and mind. She lost all ability to reason when faced with death, and could barely function under the stress. Death was the one thing she had a true "phobic" reaction to.

"Which is how and why I, despite an impossibly decent record given my psyche, was given the command of The 21st," Blaze sighed, wondering for a moment who the hell she was talking to.

The Twenty-First Unit of the Maverick Hunters was colloquially known as "The Twenty-Worst", because it was formed entirely of hunters who, for one reason or another, were considered washouts. The Unit was stationed at a base in The Arctic, a fate that not even The 13th Polar Warfare Unit was subject to, though they routinely complained that Antarctica wasn't much better. The 21st routinely had nothing to do, and saw even less action than, again, The 13th, which itself saw so little action that its original leader, Chill Penguin, had joined the Sigma Rebellion just to have something to do.

"… At least Command doesn't think I'm _feh wu_…" Blaze said softly to herself. She remembered that Signas had looked almost regretful when he had handed her the reassignment papers.

* * *

"It's no fault of your own, Commander. And The 21st DOES need a CO."

"I know. Besides you can't exactly afford to let my bad luck keep killing GOOD hunters."

"Blaze, you know that sounds ridiculous, right?"

"_Duhn ruhn_, Sir. But the fact is, EVERY Unit I've been a part of has required a complete, or at least near-complete, turnover during my time with it. And I've been in every Unit but Units 0, 6, 13, and 17. Sir, I've been in The 7th Air Cavalry, and I can't even FLY."

* * *

Of course: She had almost forgotten the jinx. Some way or another, every unit she ended up in needed most or all of its members replaced due to accidents, or just unusually fierce enemy resistance during missions. Blaze herself was not protected from this. While she hadn't yet died from the incidents, she was rarely spared from unpleasant injuries.

In the end, the command post was an acknowledgment of her skills as a Hunter, but the fact that it was The 21st Unit was a way to keep her from getting more hunters killed by preventing her from seeing too much action. Signas and the other higher-ups may not have been a superstitious bunch, but if there was one thing they knew, it was numbers.

Blaze's thoughts were interrupted by the shadow and finally, sick of inching over, she simply stood up and walked all the way down to the far end of the cabin. As she sat down, she turned and looked out the window, and yelped quietly at the sight of two glowing orbs in the window. After a moment, she realized that the two orbs were the reflections her own glowing eyes. Her right eye glimmered a golden amber color, while the left glowed a pale, sickly yellow, the result of a grievous wound that had left its mark, even after being repaired. The cause of the glow was unknown even to her. It was theorized to be a side-effect of her neural network and power systems, which were constructed of strange materials, but Blaze, in her less depressed moments would joke that, with her luck, she was probably leaking radiation.

Naturally, such moments of non-depression didn't usually last long.

Blaze didn't think about her appearance very often, but as she looked at the reflection of her eyes, she took a look at the rest of her face. She was apparently somewhat attractive, at least enough so that she had been hit on more than a few times at the bar BEFORE the beer-goggles were on. She had to admit, at the very least, that she looked unusual. The glowing eyes in particular got a lot of attention. Her hair had drawn a few looks as well: Reaching down to her waist, her straight hair was jet black, which contrasted sharply with her nigh-sickly pale synthetic skin, but had patches and crisscrossing streaks of orange and gold that gave her hair the appearance of magma burning through cracks in cooled lava, a look possibly inspired by her name. Blaze grinned slightly as she thought about the alternate explanation that her HAIR had inspired her name, a theory not entirely unreasonable considering her now-deceased father's… "eccentricities", which was another way of saying that he was fucking loony-toons. She also had, as one Hunter had commented once, a "body to die for". Blaze personally thought that was an exaggeration brought on by, again, alcohol intoxication, but conceded that her slender frame did have a bit of an elfish quality, though elves were usually described in stories as being tall, which she certainly wasn't, standing at a very diminutive five-foot-nothing.

As she looked herself over, she examined her armor, which was black with red trim and the same lava-esque streaks of orange that her hair had, a trait that she somewhat resented her father for, because it meant her stealth abilities were highly compromised, despite being an otherwise perfectly suited physically for infiltration and assassination. She never repainted it though, partly in memory of her father, and partly because she had a feeling she'd miss it if she got rid of it. The armor was fairly no frills to keep it lightweight and flexible. The bodysuit beneath the chest plate, gauntlets, shoulder plates, and boots was a jet-black color, instead of the standard gray. She was glad this was the case, since the suit was all that covered her below her chest until the boots, unless one counted the red metal band around her waist that served as a belt. While the exposed suit did allow her a greater range of motion to dodge attacks, it also left her more vulnerable to the strikes she couldn't dodge, and, quite frankly, made her feel a little self-conscious, particularly around men, though the feeling was often buried by all the OTHER reasons she had for being uncomfortable. She knew it would have been worse with a gray suit, which made the curves of the body even more visible than a black one did.

As Blaze finished examining herself, she noticed the cabin was getting darker. It was no longer a matter of "light" and "shadow". Instead, it was simply a matter of how dark it was. Instinctively, Blaze huddled her legs up off the floor. She stared at the short dark passage to the cockpit, watching for signs of movement she knew wouldn't appear. "… _Yi chi shen hu xi_, Blaze. There aren't any Mavericks in the shadows waiting to… rip you apart…" Blaze shuddered as she said "rip", "… And you KNOW there aren't."

But try as she might, she just couldn't convince herself a Maverick, or worse, couldn't have hidden itself in the shadows. Slowly, Blaze drew her revolver, aimed it at the doorway, then at various small objects in the cabin, calculating her accuracy on the initial aiming motion. She smiled slightly. She knew that she was capable of defending herself, and playing around with her buster gun helped reinforce that knowledge. Even if she couldn't convince herself there wasn't anything hiding in the shadows out to kill her, she COULD convince herself that she could kill it first. Not that she WOULD, but the possibility was comforting enough.

Blaze watched the sun set behind the ice flows. Finally, the last of the sunlight disappeared from the Cabin. All that remained was the silver light of the moon.

"That's it then… No sunlight for a while…"

Blaze sat huddled in the darkness, her revolver returned to the magnetic holster at her right hip. "_Gai si_ budget constraints…" she swore in what she hoped was proper Mandarin Chinese. It was an odd habit her father had worked into her programming, made even odder considering that their family name was Japanese. But then, she had long since stopped trying to find any rhyme or reason in anything her father had ever done, especially given some of the stories she'd heard.

Suddenly, an idea formed in her brain, and she almost slapped herself for not thinking of it sooner. Reaching across to her left hip, she grabbed the metal hilt of her katana with her right hand, and drew it from the simple titanium scabbard that was magnetically fastened to her waist. As she drew the sword, the dull glow of its blade diffused some of the shadows in the room. The blade shone a soft yellow, which occasionally phased to pale purple.

The sword was, by and large, an enigma, even to Blaze herself. Her father probably knew something of its nature, but since he was quite dead, he wouldn't be explaining it any time soon. It was a family heirloom, and she had heard that, despite his desk job, her father frequently carried it with him,which of course unnerved, or even frightened his associates and coworkers. This more than likely contributed to his eventual decision to strike out on his own, performing independent research.

Its combat attributes were infamous amongst the hunters, but there was one property that Blaze kept to herself: Somehow, the sword reacted to her emotions, changing the blade's color. Yellow seemed to indicate joy, while purple indicated fear, as far as Blaze could tell. Other emotions triggered other colors as well, such as rage triggering red, annoyance causing orange, sadness changing the blade blue, envy turning the blade green, etc.

A warning message suddenly went off in Blaze's head. She looked around, growing more nervous by the second, causing the blade to turn progressively more vivid shades of purple, until she realized that the alarm was not an external threat: On her diagnostic display her power gauge was flashing red, with a small "0 Percent" flashing beside it. The blade turned silver as Blaze's mind went blank.

"… Oh, _ai yah tien ah_…"

The blade suddenly flashed violet angrily as Blaze's terror spiraled out of control. For there was one other thing that Blaze feared: sleep. For all of Blaze's quirks and phobias stemmed from a single experience. And whenever she allowed herself to sleep…

The nightmare was relived as just that: a nightmare.

But unlike human dreams, reploids' dreams were straight simulations generated by an unconscious mind. Thus, all sensory input was intact, whether the dream was purely imagined or from a memory. For Blaze, this specifically meant that any pain she had felt then, she would feel in the dream.

And the pain involved was… considerable.

Blaze felt all of her higher systems shutting down so she could enter recharge mode. Before she slumped to the floor, she pleadingly begged, "Please don't let me dream… Please don't let me dream…"

And then she knew only blackness.

* * *

So, there's our heroine, Blaze. Not exactly "mighty warrior" material, eh?

Again, lemme know what-all you think of this.

Thanks in advance.


	2. Nightmares and Trials

So, now we get to see exactly why Blaze is so messed up.

I must warn you, good reader: some bits of Blaze's nightmare could be considered a bit disturbing. It's not gratuitously descriptive, but it does get ugly, so if you AREN'T desensitized to violence, you may want to skip ahead.

… Honestly, I don't think it's that bad, but I'm aware that my standards are not the norm. Just figured I'd make sure I don't get any hate mail over a little gore.

Also in this chapter, we meet the members of The Twenty-Worst, and we finally see what Blaze is capable of.

Read, Review, and most importantly, Enjoy.

**Blaze and The Twenty-Worst © Me**

**"Lt. Smith" is based on Smith from Shoot Em' Up © New Line Cinema**

**All other characters © Capcom

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**

"Warning. Warning. Security breach has occurred in Sector 1." The mechanical voice of the lab's main computer droned over the intercom. It was immediately interrupted by the angry voice of The Doctor.

"There's only ONE SECTOR you piece of _go se_!"

The sound of her creator swearing in Mandarin quickly woke Blaze from her slumber. Her systems ran their very first diagnostic scan, detecting that there were no anomalies. Several systems were still incomplete and/or untested, but none were vital to the new reploid's function. Blaze flexed her fingers and looked around. The warning lights must have failed, because the room was pitch black, and her night-vision could only compensate slightly.

"Blaze, if you can hear me, get out, _ma shong_! Mavericks have broken through the security systems, but I don't think they're after you. If you run for it, they may decide you aren't worth their trouble. Avoid confrontation if possible, but bring the gun with you. It should be-"

The doctor was interrupted by a large explosion. "_Mei yong ma duh tse gu yong_! Blaze, forget the gun! Just _KUAI QU HEN YUAN DE DI FANG_!"

The sound of several shots followed. Then came a nasty grating of metal on metal, and a death rattle in a voice that was not the doctor's. The sounds of battle continued over the intercom system, and Blaze stood, bolted in place.

"Today's the first day of my life, and this _f'n zse_ happens…" Blaze muttered to nobody in particular. The sound of another jarring explosion rattled her, and she spoke to herself again, her voice shaky. "And it's gonna be the LAST day of your life if you don't get out. C'mon, Blaze. _Nee tzao se mah?_ Move…"

Suddenly, there was a different tearing sound. It was the sound of flesh being cut. "_NI TA MA DE_!!!" was the last sound she heard over the line before the signal died in a burst of static. She knew instinctively that her creator, her "father" was dead.

"… Goodbye, Dr. Setsura… Dad. I wish I could have met you…" Blaze only bowed slightly, as there would be time to grieve later, before turning and heading towards what she hoped was the door. Before she reached it, however, she heard heavy steps, and voices. She quickly ran a check of her data files. She and her father were the only residents of the lab. Which meant that whoever was outside the door was an enemy. Blaze slowly backed away from the door. She knew that she had little or no hope of victory. She was designed as a combat reploid, but combat systems were incomplete. "_Lao tien fu_…"

"Are we POSITIVE that guy was human?"

"His insides looked pretty human to me."

"Since when can humans cut through armor without any cybernetic enhancement?"

"Well, he did have a beam saber-"

"No he didn't. That blade was nothing but a lump of metal crystal. And no metallurgy I've ever heard of produces a blade SO sharp a human can cut reploid armor without ANY mechanical assistance. And besides, that still leaves the guy's speed to talk about. Have you ever seen a human THAT fast? The guy was like a bat out of hell. I've never heard of a human killing a reploid in straight combat, especially MELEE combat, before, and this guy killed THREE, AND chopped my fucking arm off!"

"The guy is, or rather, WAS a specialist in nano-machines. Maybe he enhanced himself in some way. I mean, given his reputation, that's exactly the sort of thing he'd do."

"… Would that actually work?"

"Fuck if I know. He was the specialist, ask him. Oh wait, you killed him, didn't you? So why are you bitching?"

"His death was way too quick, as far as I'm concerned. I really need to torture someone right now."

Blaze stifled a small yelp of fear. She prayed that there was another exit, but a quick scan of the room showed no other doors, and the only vent was too small to fit through, even for her.

"We get all the data?"

"Unless there's an isolated computer bank in that room there, yeah."

Blaze felt all the circulatory fluids drain from her face. Given their position, the only room they could be talking about was hers. She took several steps back, but knew there was no cover in the room that would conceal her. "_Rung tse song di ching dai wuo tzo_…"

Unfortunately, no power, deity or otherwise, could whisk her to safety.

"We may as well check it out."

Blaze swallowed hard as the door opened. She took a defensive stance, but couldn't stop her body from quivering with terror. She saw three Mavericks in the doorway. One had the appearance of an anthropomorphic rabbit with black fur, and armor to match. The second was horse-like, with oversized boots that Blaze assumed held extra dash thrusters. The last was a savage-looking Bear reploid, which had only a left arm. Blaze knew at that instant that she was fucked… Viciously, viciously fucked. Any ONE of these guys could beat her without breaking a sweat.

The Mavericks stared at her for a moment, then burst out laughing. "Check it out! The runt thinks she can take us!" The horse called out mockingly.

No. No, she did not.

"Should we even waste our time on her?" Asked the Rabbit, cracking up more with every word.

She briefly hoped that the question even being asked meant she had a chance.

"Yes. I still need to torture something, and this pipsqueak looks like she'll fit the bill just fine." The grizzly grinned evilly.

Fuck.

"But just to show you there're no hard feelings, kid, I'll let you take the first shot." The bear used his thumb to crack the joints of his other four fingers, a metallic pop resounding from each one.

Blaze gulped, and took another step back.

The Grizzly eyed her darkly. "Kid, you are GOING to die in the immediate future. But if I were you, I'd take any chance you could to bring me down so one of those two has the pleasure of crushing the life out of you. Believe me, brat… I'm NOT the one you want to die at the hands of!"

Blaze looked around at the expressions each Maverick bore and knew the bear was telling the truth. Her chance of survival was absolutely zero, as far as she could figure, and her brain could count VERY tiny decimals. Finally, she leapt at the Grizzly with a knife-hand strike, but the grizzly simply leaned back away from it. Continuing her motion, however, Blaze was able to flip upside-down and snap out a kick directly at the bear's snout. As she threw the kick, however, some joint gave way just slightly. It didn't slow her much, but it was enough for the grizzly to lean to the side of the blow. Opening his jaws wide, the bear bit down on Blaze's calf. Hard.

"KYYAAAAAAAAH!" Blaze immediately shrieked in pain as she felt each individual tooth sink straight through her armor, her synthetic skin, and her lightweight armored frame, tearing into the circuits and motors. The pain was so intense that her vision was blurred, and she went limp, hanging from the bear's jaws. Bolts of electricity ran through her body as her sensory system was overloaded by information on the damage, or in laymen's terms, every minute sensation from the wound.

The Rabbit grinned. "I think you hit a nerve, Ursa."

The Bear, whose name was evidently Ursa, answered unintelligibly, tearing the wound wider as he did so and eliciting another scream from Blaze.

"The girl's right, Ursa," the horse said, chuckling, "You shouldn't talk with your mouth full."

"… Lame, Equine," The rabbit muttered.

"Shut up, Jackrabbit."

Blaze tried to look defiantly at Ursa, but she knew that her tears weren't exactly intimidating to behold. Ursa simply grinned, biting down a bit harder on Blaze's leg. As she cried out again again, he drew back his one remaining paw, clenching it into a fist, and driving it into Blaze's stomach. Her eyes went wide in shock as she coughed violently, spitting red circulatory fluids, her "blood", all over Ursa's armor and fur.

The blow had such force that Blaze was thrown back against the wall of the room. Her senses were in overload, and she gazed through a red haze at Ursa, and saw to her horror that her leg hadn't made the flight with her. Ursa turned to the side and spit out the mangled limb, then advanced slowly on Blaze, relishing her terror almost as much as her pain.

* * *

Blaze hurt everywhere. She barely even felt it as Ursa's massive foot was driven into her gut, forcing another small amount of blood from her mouth. As she crashed into the wall and slumped to the floor, she tried to look around. It was difficult, since Ursa had gouged out her left eye, but she saw enough. The lab was a complete mess. There was blood everywhere, and every drop of it was hers. She couldn't even muster enough strength to plead with Ursa to just kill her and be done with it.

"Okay Ursa, seriously. I enjoy a good time as much as the next bloodthirsty killer," Jackknife said impatiently, "but can we get a move on? We have a schedule to keep."

"… Oh fine. Ruin my fun why don't you?" Ursa turned to Blaze, holding her bloodied form by the throat. "Consider yourself lucky, kid. I had another hour's worth of aggression to blow off."

"…_Ni_…_t_-_ta_…_m-m-ma_…_d_-_de._" Blaze tried to snarl, despairing when she barely managed a whimper.

"Like creator like pitiful creation…" Ursa grinned as he gave Blaze's neck a quick, one-handed jerk, snapping her neck servos and severing her major neural pathways. He then dropped her broken form to the ground.

* * *

She hadn't actually died right then. She had lain there for several minutes, silently crying, and unable to move as the life drained from her body. But the nightmare always cut off before that, denying her the ability to relive the part of the experience that had been, in retrospect, the best part. After the intense suffering she had endured, to feel herself losing all sensation, from the core out, seemed almost enjoyable when she was able to look back on it. And finally, the blackness had hit. But the nightmare always ended at the exact moment when the pain was at its most unbearable.

Dr. Setsura's paranoia had proved to be a double edged sword; On the one hand, his death had triggered an alarm, summoning the Maverick Hunters; On the other hand, he had neglected, to tell the Hunters where his lab was before this incident, and had so heavily encoded the signal that the Hunters' efforts to trace the signal back to the lab were delayed. Thus, when Hunters finally arrived on the scene, the Mavericks were long gone, and all that was left were the bodies of both Blaze and Dr. Setsura.

Blaze had finally awoken several days after that, her body repaired and the incomplete systems installed with the aid of the blueprints saved in Dr. Setsura's computers. When she had asked about the apparently fatal wound to her neural network, the Lifesaver Unit tending to her had no recollection of such a wound.

When she asked to see her father's remains, they had hesitated, before finally showing her to his body, which had been torn open by what could only have been Ursa's claws. In his hand was a katana of shimmering crystal, doused in dry reploid blood. At that moment, Blaze had decided to join the Maverick Hunters.

* * *

"Hey, Commander. Wake up." A tall, skinny Maverick Hunter in iridescent white armor spoke softly to Blaze. He reached out to touch her shoulder, but the moment he made contact, he found himself staring down the barrel of Blaze's revolver. Blaze shot awake instantly, screaming, "_WO DE TIAN, A_! Get away from me!"

"HOLY-! Don't shoot!"

Blaze was shuddering violently, tears running down her cheeks, terror gripping her tightly. She desperately forced herself to lower her buster gun, but couldn't stop shaking.

"You all right?" the reploid asked her, keeping a safe distance.

"… Nightmare," she answered after finally slowing her panicked breathing enough to speak.

"Must've been a really bad nightmare," the reploid said sympathetically.

Blaze tried to grin, even though her heart hadn't stopped racing. "You have… no idea…"

Several moments passed before Blaze could finally take a deep breath, and re-holster her revolver. "… Sorry about that," Blaze apologized, looking away, "You're a Hunter, then? Some first impression I'm making on someone who has to take orders from me."

"No biggie, Commander Blaze. Allow me to introduce myself: I'm Sharp, former member of the 9th Black Ops, now Executive Officer of the Twenty-Worst," The reploid said with a grin.

"So, you're the one who gets to do my talking for me?"

"If necessary, yes. Not much of a people person?"

"Don't even get me started."

"Well, I guess I ought to show you around," Sharp said, offering his hand to Blaze.

She merely stared at it for a moment before climbing to her feet. Her nerves still tingled from sensations the dream had fed them, and the first few steps actually caused her to wince.

"… Right, then," As they exited the transport, Sharp gestured around. "Commander, welcome to the land of the month-long nights. I know it isn't actually a month, but I have a poor sense of time, which is kind of odd considering that I have a built-in clock, but the point is you shouldn't bother correcting me."

Blaze, however, was barely listening. She was berating herself inwardly for letting herself lose control so badly that she pulled her gun on a subordinate. While her career as a Hunter was pockmarked with weird incidents, she had never had such a bad experience before that she had inadvertently threatened one of her troops. She stared at her hand, which even now wouldn't stop trembling.

"Hey Sharp! Who's the chick?" came a loud voice from the landing platform.

"… Perhaps I should have mentioned that the entire Unit decided to come and welcome you to the Twenty-Worst in person…" Sharp whispered to her, before turning to the seven hunters assembled on the platform and shouting, "The 'chick' is Commander Blaze, Firestorm, so I'd suggest showing a bit of respect!"

"You're not seriously trying to convince me that THAT'S our glorious new leader, are you? She looks like a strong wind could knock her over!" Firestorm shouted back.

Sharp's eyes narrowed. "Look, Firestorm, we can take care of your stupid ritual tomorrow. The Commander… had a bad flight, okay?"

"Sharp. We've known each other a long time, right?"

"Yes."

"How likely is it that you'll be able to talk me down?"

"You want I should shoot you? That'd get you down pretty damn quick!"

Blaze somewhat hesitantly put a hand on Sharp's shoulder. He turned, and sighed. "Are you sure, Commander? He's going to want a fight. He always does when someone new shows up. ESPECIALLY if they outrank him."

Immediately, a large, muscular reploid with red and orange armor step forth from the group, grinning. With a name like Firestorm, she expected a heavy weapons reploid. But while Firestorm certainly could handle heavy armaments, he had the aura of a fist fighter. Indeed, Blaze recognized his gauntlets as being of a special alloy meant to defend against plasma attacks and his boots had similar plating on them. The extreme density of the gauntlets meant that only a very strong reploid could move while using such equipment.

"… You're formerly of the 14th Melee, right?" Blaze asked, testing her hunch.

"Got that right, 'Commander'! I've been personally trained by Magma Dragoon!" Firestorm answered proudly.

"You mean Magma Dragoon, the traitor to the Hunters?" Blaze asked, still shaky, but she couldn't stop the sly grin from spreading across her face, knowing instinctively that even with a weak delivery, that comment would hit a nerve. The 21st Unit began laughing collectively, with the exception of Firestorm, who seemed mortified. His face was red, both from embarrassment and indignation. Knowing her ability to hit a weak spot was still intact lifted Blaze's spirits slightly.

"Okay, 'Commander', enough with the words!" Firestorm stood tall, obviously trying to intimidate Blaze with his substantial stature, which was nearly double hers, "Whenever the Twenty-Worst gets a new member, they have to be tested by their troops… In BATTLE!"

"… Just _bi jweh_ and hit me already," Blaze sighed, assuming a combat stance.

"You asked for it!" Firestorm charged at Blaze, throwing a powerful punch at her face. Blaze simply dropped down onto her right hand, using her left leg to deflect and lock in the punch, and driving her other foot into Firestorm's gut. He stumbled back, Blaze's leg still wrapped around his forearm. Pushing off with her hand, she propelled herself upward, swinging up so she was almost sitting on Firestorm's outstretched arm, and striking him across the face with a powerful backfist, before falling backward off, and handspringing back to a safe distance. Firestorm responded by spinning with the punch, launching a powerful crescent kick at Blaze's chest. Blaze ducked under it, and attempted to interrupt with a roundhouse kick to the body, but Firestorm was ready, and used his forearm to block her leg hard. Blaze flinched as her leg bounced off the super-dense gauntlet, and she was caught hard in the gut by the spinning back kick that followed the crescent. Blaze was launched back by the force of the blow, and landed painfully, crouching down and spitting out a small amount of blood. She looked up at Firestorm, who was grinning broadly, shuffle stepping back and forth slightly. Despite his size, he apparently just as capable of using quicker, more flexible blows. "You really ought to get up," Firestorm said, "I wouldn't hit you when you were down, but kneeling isn't down in my book." With that, he charged with a crossing side-thrust kick. Blaze leapt up, flipping upside down, hooking her right instep around his ankle. Firestorm held the kick out straight for a moment as a flourish, and grinned, but was quickly shocked to see Blaze hanging from his leg like a bat. With a sigh, Blaze swung her other heel into the back of Firestorm's knee, causing his leg to buckle inward, swinging her toward his other knee, which she struck from behind with a knife hand. Firestorm was immediately sent face-first down to the cold metal surface of the landing platform.

"Are we done yet?" Blaze asked, sitting on Firestorm's back, slowly pulling his leg back with a leg lock.

"No offense, 'Commander', but shove it up your ass!" Firestorm spat venomously.

"No _ma fuhn_, soldier," Blaze said softly before driving her elbow backward into the back of Firestorm's head, smashing his face into the metal floor. The impact knocked him out cold, and blood began to run somewhat profusely from his nose.

Blaze got to her feet, licked and with the tip of her index finger wiped off the small line of blood that was dripping from her mouth, then turned to the rest of her new unit.

There was silence.

"Sharp, have you got a data pad for me?" Blaze asked, turning to her second-in-command.

"Yes, ma'am." Sharp quickly produced a small palm-sized computer with a large screen and a stylus. Blaze took it, and quickly accessed her Unit Roster. Including her own, the list bore nine names under the subdivision "Combat Units". Blaze began taking role call, silently checking her own name off.

"Lieutenant Sharp."

"Here, ma'am," Sharp answered immediately. Blaze had already checked him off.

"Lieutenant Slate Tortoise."

"Here, ma'am," came the reply as a massive tortoise reploid in stony-looking armor so thick his face was obscured stepped forward, shaking the platform as he walked. He attempted to salute, but his armor restricted his movements so much his hand couldn't reach his head. Two massive rifles were attached to his back, held by sub-arms extending from his waist. Blaze didn't even have to ask to know he was a former member of The 8th Armor. Blaze checked him off.

"Lieutenant… Smith?"

"Here," answered a dark-haired reploid with a gaunt face and an armored coat, which Blaze guessed concealed several hidden weapons. The strange reploid pulled out a carrot, and took a single bite out of it, chewing slowly. The reploid clearly had the arsenal of an 8th Unit Hunter, but had the calm, almost haughty aura of The 0 Special Ops. But the characteristics of a special op did NOT include any traits that got one tossed into the 21st. "… Yes. I AM in fact a former Special Op from Unit 0," Smith cut in, reading her expression easily.

"Huh," Blaze mused as she checked his name off. Continuing down the list, she read the next name twice in her head to make sure she got it right. "Officer… Hypothermic… Kingfisher?"

"Roles off the fucking tongue, doesn't it, Commander?" asked a bird reploid with sharp icicles in place of feathers on her wings and plumage. Kingfisher's long, narrow beak formed as large a grin as possible as she said, "I've taken a blood oath to kill whoever gave me that name." That comment was enough for Blaze to guess that Kingfisher was formerly of The 7th Air Cavalry: Her second best guess, The 13th Polar Warfare, usually consisted of far less ballsy Hunters. Blaze checked her off, feeling semi-unpleasantly as though she'd heard that name before.

"Officer Dust Gila."

Only a hiss sounded from the sand-colored lizard reploid who stepped forward. Sharp stepped in, "Ma'am, our friend here has no working speech program as a result of a Sigma Virus infection a few years back. He's completely clean, but fighting the virus's influence messed up his code slightly. He understands just fine, though." Dust nodded in concurrence. He grinned, bearing several razor-like teeth, and saluted with one of his sharp-clawed hands. At his sides, he had a pair of beam sabers. Blaze had a feeling that Dust used to be in The 4th Desert Combat. Blaze checked his name off as well.

"Sergeant Strike Scorpion."

"Here, ma'am." The scorpion reploid was almost definitely from The 14th. He possessed six arms, the top pair bearing large metal pincers. The other four had short claws in the knuckles, and his feet had a single large, hooked claw each. His segmented tail also had a wicked looking blade at its end. "And if I may, ma'am, I would like to apologize for my partner's behavior earlier. You may have noticed ma'am, that he is a…" he paused, presumably to come up with a polite way of saying "complete fucking moron".

Finally, he settled with, "…complete fucking moron."

"… Like I told him, No _ma fuhn_." Blaze nodded as she checked Strike off, ignoring his rather uncertain glance in response to her Mandarin. "Petty Officer Firestorm." Blaze simply looked at the beaten melee combat reploid for a second before checking him off and moving to the last name on the list. "Private Omicron."

"Here ma'am!" was the enthusiastic response that immediately flagged Omicron as a rookie. He was no taller than Blaze, and wore utilitarian green armor. Blaze was surprised to see such a rank amateur already reduced to the 21st, especially one so new that they didn't seem to understand what such an assignment meant. Blaze checked him off, then checked his rank, and saw that he was so new that he didn't even have a Combat rank yet.

Blaze looked around, looked over the list one more time, and then deactivated the data pad. "Sharp, I assume that's our ride," Blaze said, pointing to the large blue craft docked on the opposite end of the landing platform.

"Affirmative, Commander," Sharp answered.

"_Sheh sheh_." Blaze cleared her throat, turned toward the transport, took several deep breaths in preparation, and shouted, "Medic!" Several seconds later, a Lifesaver unit with dark gray armor rather than the usual white emerged from the ship, and approached. Blaze simply pointed at Firestorm.

"… Not again…" Lifesaver sighed as he picked up the unconscious fighter, carrying him to the transport. Blaze couldn't help but smile slightly. The brawl with Firestorm had reminded her of one thing that boosted her confidence: despite all of her weaknesses, quirks, phobias, and the like, she could still kick peoples' asses very handily. Handily enough, at least, to offset the incidents her record was littered with.

* * *

So, Blaze's past is more than a little messed up. But it's okay: there's nothing quite as therapeutic as breaking someone's nose.

Next time, we'll finally meet the villain of the story, and see what makes him so dangerous.


	3. Destruction Incarnate

This chapter introduces the story's antagonist.

As usual, Read, Review, and Enjoy the story.

**Nightshade, Dr. Molten Gargoyle, Dr. Gregory Setsura, and The Three Mavericks © Me**

**All others © Capcom (or are way too non-specific to count as characters)

* * *

**

"My name is Nightshade."

That was the first thought that shot through the newly built reploid's head. He quickly began downloading data from the facility's mainframe through the diagnostic computer he was connected to.

He had been awake for roughly 0.035 seconds.

The year was 2131. He was currently in a secret lab located in the Arctic Circle. He had been created based on data that had been generated from the research of Dr. Gregory Setsura. The research specifically pertained to nanobots, and how a "demon" or "devil" type robot could be improved upon if the nanites were designed specifically for a particular function. The data had been stolen from the late doctor 11 years, 199 days, 3 hours, and 47 seconds ago. The doctor and his sole functioning creation had been killed during the theft. Nightshade had been in development since that time. He had been built by a faction of reploids loyal to the reploid-turned-virus, Sigma. He had been designed to become their ultimate weapon, capable of defeating the "legendary" reploids Mega Man X and Zero.

Nightshade stopped, and took what felt to him to be a moment to make a correction to the data. Neither X nor Zero could truly be considered "reploids"; X because "reploid" implied replication, and he was the original design; Zero because he was of another origin entirely. Nightshade could not locate any data on what that origin was, however, he found several clues suggesting that Zero was of the same "vintage" as X.

Nightshade had been awake for 0.066 seconds.

He continued to gather data. Sigma and his followers were the largest organized faction of "Mavericks": Reploids who had turned against humans. X and Zero were Sigma's greatest enemies, the leaders of the Maverick Hunters, reploids who hunted, fought, and destroyed Mavericks. They had fought against and defeated Sigma no fewer than six times. Nightshade was meant to be able to outclass them by using their own greatest strength against them: their adaptability. X and Zero both had the ability to copy the weapons and/or skills of their enemies, becoming far stronger. Nightshade had accordingly been given a similar power, but beyond simply copying weapons as X did, or skills as Zero did, Nightshade's nanite structure allowed him to copy entire systems, reconfiguring them for his own use. In theory, this power would allow him to become perfect, given enough time and data.

Nightshade corrected that statement: "perfection" was, by its very nature, unattainable.

It had been 0.177 seconds since his activation.

Nightshade continued collecting data, but ceased his active analysis to look at his surroundings. The lab was large, storing several gargantuan computers, and large metal containers full of equipment. There were several reploids standing around the room. Nightshade quickly identified each from the data he was downloading.

The large, brown-furred bear reploid with sharp claws and a "scar" of jagged metal around one elbow was Mauler Ursa. The small, black jackrabbit reploid was Void Jackrabbit. The horse reploid with oversized dash thrusters was Mach Equine. These three, along with three now-dead Mavericks, had been responsible for the theft of Dr. Setsura's research.

It was suggested in the records that Dr. Setsura had personally killed the missing half of the raiding party, but this seemed highly unlikely to Nightshade. Still, if such a human had existed that could kill reploids in hand-to-hand combat, and Setsura had been that human, a full bio-analysis would no doubt provide invaluable information on human potential. Of course, the possibility of cybernetics still existed, but any that would make a difference would be easily noticed, and therefore likely mentioned in the records.

Finally, there was the reploid who was responsible for Nightshade's design: a strange reploid with stony skin with cracks revealing a molten substance somehow contained within his body. The reploid had a humanoid shape, but with a distinct scaly pattern on his skin, a forked tongue, a hawk beak, bat wings, and hooves. The reploid was identified in the data as Dr. Molten Gargoyle.

The time elapsed since his activation was now 0.248 seconds. Nightshade estimated that they would realize he was awake once 0.400 seconds had elapsed.

Nightshade decided to examine Gargoyle's work. His entire structure was composed of nanites, but he was not a solid block of them, as the ancient "Demon" types created by Dr. Albert Wily had been. Instead, the nanites had very specialized functions: for instance, every gear in his body was comprised of nanites designed specifically to function only within gears, joining together in the patterns necessary to replicate the alloy that would comprise the gear in a normal machine. This meant that individual circuits could be modified on the fly to optimize Nightshade's overall functionality. Nightshade's entire body, including his hair and his skin, was the same gunmetal gray color. Only his eyes, the irises of which shone blood red, were remotely fleshy-looking. His arsenal was small, yet was simultaneously infinite. He had a single melee weapon, the blade of which was composed of a very special type of nanites that allowed it extreme durability and the ability to diffuse energy, and gave the weapon the ability to reconfigure itself into nearly any shape imaginable. His sidearm worked on a similar principle, with reconfigurable internal systems that would allow it to fire plasma in a variety of forms, power levels, radii, rates, and speeds. But his most deadly weapon was the virus he carried within him.

The virus was fundamentally different than The Maverick Virus. While the Maverick Virus took control of a reploid's mind, forcing it to bend to Sigma's will, the virus in Nightshade's code REMOVED all controls, sending the reploids emotional centers spiraling out of control. Every system in the reploid's body, including weapons would begin firing on all cylinders, operating at 129 percent capacity, with a slight margin of difference depending on the reploid, until the reploid's power system overloaded and caused the reploid to self-destruct. The virus was impossible to cure or immunize against because of both its incredible power, and its speed of infection. Nightshade himself was only protected because he had no emotional centers to influence, and the his nanite-formed circuitry had no external access points.

Rounding out Nightshade's weaponry was a slight adjustment to his body design. His power generator had two lines that ran down his arms into his palms. Every weapon, no matter how powerful, was diluted in some way. Nightshade had the ability to bypass this, as the lines' power generator nanites allowed him to directly expel raw plasma from his power systems as a weapon.

0.391 seconds.

Nightshade's programming consisted of three directives. Nightshade immediately understood that he was not a reploid as soon as he saw this: the specific aspect of X's design that had been copied into his "descendants", the reploid race, was the ability for truly free thought. While Nightshade was granted a high level of interpretive ability as to the fulfillment of his directives, he was nonetheless constrained by them. As Nightshade lacked emotional centers, this didn't bother him. The three directives were:

1: Become the perfect combat machine.

Nightshade immediately moved this to the bottom of the list. As he had already noted, perfection was impossible to attain. It therefore did not make sense to make the impossible his primary focus. He could become nigh perfect, and would of course continue to improve until his inevitable end, most likely in combat.

2: Destroy Megaman X and Zero.

This was actually possible for Nightshade, though if the data on the Maverick Hunters was accurate, then he was currently no match for them, especially if they fought together. No matter. This could be rectified later. Nightshade also made a note that this directive was actually a sub-category of his third directive.

3: Purify the planet.

This was a complicated one, and very open to interpretation. Nightshade immediately recognized the thought process behind the directive. From a Maverick perspective, global purification would be the destruction or enslavement of all humans, and the reploids who stood up for them.

Unfortunately for the Mavericks, Nightshade did not share this perspective.

Nightshade had been awake for a full half-second when Gargoyle finally noticed he was conscious, 0.100 seconds later than Nightshade had predicted.

"Well, well. It appears our glorious creation is finally awake. How do you feel?"

Nightshade spoke, hearing his own voice for the first time. It was as cold and without passion as his thoughts. In short, it was exactly the way he knew it would sound.

"I don't 'feel', Doctor. I appear to be functioning just fine, however."

"Good, good," Gargoyle seemed overjoyed: he clearly had no idea of what was at hand. "Now, do you understand your first directive?"

"I understand that my now-second directive is impossible. I will still attempt to advance myself along that path."

"Smart boy. How about the second directive?"

"Yes. I determined that my formerly second directive was actually part of what is now my primary directive. I'll be sure to give X and Zero priority, however."

"Good. And the third-"

"Sir?" Gargoyle was interrupted by a technician reploid standing at the computer. His designation was simply "Number 5". "Sir, there's something wrong here…"

"What is it?" Gargoyle immediately rushed over to look at the screen. The glow disappeared from his armor when he read the data. Nightshade guessed that this was equivalent to a human blanching.

"Sir? What's going on?"

Gargoyle stared at Nightshade. Nightshade could read the terror on his face. "Nightshade…it…appears that there's a…problem in your system that needs to be corrected. If you'll just power down-"

"That's not going to happen, Doctor. All of my systems are functioning perfectly. But you know this already, don't you? You know that I am functioning exactly as you programmed me to. And tell Ursa that if he wants to sneak up on me, he's going to have to be far quieter next time, the fact that there won't be a next time notwithstanding."

Nightshade heard the air hissing around Ursa's claws as the bear swiped, and immediately ejected his sword from his wrist armor. The nanite blade immediately assembled itself into a crystal katana, which Nightshade swung to meet Ursa's strike. He did not block Ursa's claws, however, and instead went straight for his elbow joint, severing it though the scar "tissue". Ursa only had time to mutter, "Not again…" before the blade had also flashed through his neck. The bear's head slowly detached from the neck before tumbling to the ground. His body soon followed.

"Oh, fuck me sideways! KILL HIM!" Gargoyle screamed.

"Doctor, you built me. You know that nobody in this room is capable of defeating me, let alone actually killing me."

Nightshade was interrupted by the charging Mach Equine, but Nightshade was completely ready for him, using a sweep kick to send Equine face-first across the floor, and somersaulting after him, driving both his knees into Equine's back, smashing the horse Maverick's armor and crushing most of his internal systems. Rising, he drove his heel into Equine's skull for good measure.

Nightshade immediately leapt, avoiding several blasts of artificial dark matter from Void Jackrabbit. Nightshade activated his dash thrusters, charging at the rabbit, who was throwing masses of artificial dark matter at him like throwing knives. Nightshade made slight movements as he flew forward, dodging each blade by the narrowest margin. When he finally collided with Jackknife, he speared into the reploid's chest with his hand, and began feeding nanites into the reploid's main neural network. After a few seconds, he leapt back, as Jackknife began screaming incoherently, throwing blobs of dark matter in all directions, before a wave of darkness burst from within him, consuming everything within a twenty foot radius, and breaking apart into small projectiles.

"Damn it!" Gargoyle yelled as he and his lab techs all dived behind the computers to avoid the dark shrapnel, "Where the hell is he?!"

They all listened for a moment, before looking out. Nightshade had made himself scarce.

"Sir, we can't pick him up on any scanners…" Number 7 said nervously.

"… Of course we can't. He was wired into the system. He knows the blind spot of every camera, and knows what power frequencies will hide him from the energy spectrum readers," Nightshade heard Gargoyle respond.

Nightshade had to admit, Gargoyle really knew his creation's capabilities. Nightshade ejected his sidearm from his other wrist. As soon as it was in his hand, the targeting data was displayed on his HUD. The gun needed to prime itself before firing, but Nightshade guessed only Gargoyle would react quickly enough when he heard the click.

Sure enough, Gargoyle was the only one who was not immediately torn apart by the hail of needle-like crimson plasma bolts. Nightshade dropped down from his hiding place in the ceiling as soon as the last one fell. He put away his gun, and drew his sword, knowing that Gargoyle was about to go on the offensive. Nightshade adopted a defensive stance as he detected a rapid increase in temperature right at the doctor's location. Nightshade realized that there might have been some weakness that was deliberately not mentioned in any of the files he had accessed, to be used against him in such a situation as this.

But all Gargoyle did was charge in a spinning ball of fire, attempting to body-slam Nightshade. Nightshade realized the heat might actually damage some of his systems, but calculated that the damage wouldn't be anything serious.

And even that was only if Gargoyle managed to hit him.

He jumped up, landed on top of the doctor as he spun to face him, and drove his blade into his chest, pinning him to the ground. Nightshade held the blade firmly in place, as the doctor coughed up several globs of magma.

"Why…have you done this to us?" Gargoyle asked weakly.

"You saw the data. You know what I have concluded. Your idea of a 'purified world' is flawed. The world can only resume its natural, or to quote my directive, 'pure' course if ALL sentient life is destroyed. Humans, Reploids, Hunters, Mavericks, and all other life forms capable of sentience pose a threat to this planet. Humans began the cycle with their negligence of their environment and wanton pollution. Reploids continued this cycle, taking over the same polluting jobs that humans once held. The Mavericks have caused extreme damage to the planet in their efforts to destroy humans, and the Hunters have done almost as much damage trying to destroy the Mavericks." Nightshade paused for a moment before adding, "You should have programmed me with more specific directives."

"Figures…" Gargoyle mumbled, "… Killed by…semantics…" The good doctor began to melt into a puddle of molten rock on the floor. Nightshade retracted his sword, observed the puddle for a few seconds more to ensure it displayed no activity, and then turned to leave.

"Not so fast! I created you! I can DESTROY YOU!" Gargoyle reformed instantly, generating intense heat as he shot straight at Nightshade, hand extended towards his neck.

Nightshade turned, and extended his right palm toward the doctor, before releasing a blast of raw plasma into him. The deep red bolts coursed through Gargoyle's body before leaping into the nearest computer bank. Nightshade's eyes widened just slightly as he realized he had started a chain reaction. Red electricity began to shoot through every electrical system and piece of metal in the room, until the entire lab seemed alive with Nightshade's power. Nightshade crouched, grounding himself as the lab began to collapse under the strain. When the energy finally hit the lab's main reactor, the resulting explosion was massive, sending out a sphere of energy that incinerated everything it came in contact with.

Naturally, this included the walls and support beams.

* * *

Nightshade surveyed the damage from beneath a crystal shell projected by his sword handle. He looked and saw that there was no debris directly above him, and deactivated his sword, returning the handle to his wrist. It quickly became apparent that he had been standing inside the blast radius of the reactor, and had only survived without significant damage because his sword blade had diffused the energy.

He made a mental note to be more careful in the future. As he examined the lab, he saw a single computer screen flickering. Nightshade approached it, and discovered that it was a personal computer, not connected to the main network. It had been scrambled by the power surge, but had only been hit by the diluted energy that had already been through several other systems, and shielded from the explosion by a pile of debris. Nightshade placed his palm over the drive port, and allowed several of his nanites to enter and link with the device. He quickly drained all of the data the device carried, but was surprised to learn that it had a covert network access. He immediately began to download data on firearms, armor, hand-to-hand combat styles, melee weapons, booster systems, targeting programs, and anything else he deemed pertinent and/or compatible with his current systems.

By the time he was finished, he estimated his combat capabilities had increased by 284 percent.

* * *

So, we finally have an antagonist. The Twenty-First is going to have a LOT of fun figuring out how to stop this juggernaut.

Again, all input is greatly appreciated.


	4. Storytime

This chapter gives a bit more backstory to the Twenty-Worst.

Important to get this out of the way now, because there won't be time to go into it later.

Read, Review, and Enjoy.

**Blaze, The Twenty-Worst, The Gray Lifesaver, Ursa, and Dr. Setsura © Me**

**Megaman X, Zero, and Signas © Capcom

* * *

**

"Got any fives, Fisher?" Smith asked Kingfisher.

"Go fish," Kingfisher answered. There was an immediate chuckle from everyone at the table except for Blaze, Smith, and Kingfisher. "I swear. Guy who named me is dead if I ever meet 'em. And I fucking hate 'Go Fish'. Couldn't we play Blackjack? I'm good at Blackjack."

"That's a boldfaced lie, Fisher," Omicron piped in, "Nobody can connect your name to Blackjack is all."

"Thank you, Captain Fucking Obvious."

"Actually, I'm not a Captain-"

"Rookie, shut the FUCK up."

"… Yes ma'am."

Blaze was simply slumped on the table, with one hand holding her head up, as she silently watched the game unfold.

"Commander? You sure you don't want to play?" Sharp asked.

"Uh-huh…" Blaze simply nodded. Her brief burst of energy from putting Firestorm in his place had worn off, and her usual melancholy was reclaiming its rightful place in her mind.

"You absolutely sure? I mean, even Lifesaver is playing, and he's got a patient with at least a broken nose, if not a pair of broken knees."

"Hey. Until that dumbass smartens up and stops picking fights with teammates, I refuse to give him any medical assistance," the gray-armored medic sighed indignantly.

"… How is he?" Blaze asked.

"Don't know, Commander. I kinda just dropped him on the table and came in here. But this wouldn't be the first time he's had to patch himself up, so I'm sure he's fine."

As if on cue, Firestorm entered the small mess hall, bearing bandages on his nose, braces on his knees, and a scowl on his face. He walked over to the solitary table and silently sat down beside Strike, giving Blaze the evil eye the entire time.

"Dust. I was right. She DID break his knees. Pay up," Slate said slowly in his rumbling voice. Dust grudgingly handed him a handful of golden crystals, hissing what Blaze was sure was an expletive.

"How's the nose, Firestorm?" Strike asked, jokingly nudging the wounded fighter with his tail.

"Shut up, Strike," Firestorm muttered, still scowling at Blaze.

"Figured as much. Just remember, Storm: YOU challenged her to a fight. It's not her fault she's better than you."

"You know what pisses me off?" Smith asked, cutting in, "We sit here every night, in a mess hall that's too fucking big for the ten of us that eat here, playing a card game with nothing to bet. We're fucking MAVERICK HUNTERS:We shouldn't be this fucking bored."

"How about story time, then? The Commander doesn't know any of us yet, and we all should know each other if we're going to be working together." Sharp offered, trying to sound helpful.

"Working together doing WHAT?!" Smith practically shouted.

"Goddamn it Smith, just play along. We want to make Commander Blaze feel welcome, right? She seems to have enough reasons to be melancholic without us exacerbating it. And I said that aloud instead of whispering, didn't I?"

"… _Shi_," Blaze said flatly, "But I'm giving you authority to do whatever the _guai_ you want."

"Well, perhaps we should start with introductions-"

"We all know each other here, Sharp. And for crying out loud, this is a Hunting Unit, not fucking summer camp," Kingfisher snapped.

"I meant more than just names. Like what Units we're originally from, our special skills, why we're in The Twenty-Worst, etc."

Sharp was met with a long chorus of "whatever".

"Fine, I'll start. I was built as a labor reploid, originally. When the Maverick Hunters were formed, I volunteered, was given a complete overhaul to make me combat-ready, and was placed under the command of Sting Chameleon in the 9th Black Ops. He quickly chose me as his executive officer because of my thoroughness and strategic ability. I did have a tendency to talk too much when off duty, which kind of pissed off my teammates. When Sting betrayed the Hunters, I followed him for a time, trying to talk him out of it, which in retrospect could have easily prompted him to kill me. I never actually helped him, nor was I ever infected with the virus, but my refusal to directly confront him kind of left a black mark on my record as a Hunter. Now I'm the Twenty-Worst's executive officer, and the resident strategist. In the field, I'm rated as Class SA, and act as the team's sniper and scout, by virtue of the big cannon on my shoulder and my active camouflage armor. And that's about it from me, so…" Sharp looked at the other Hunters, before finally gesturing to Slate, "Slate, you want to just go in order of rank?"

"Fair enough." Slate cleared his throat and began. "I was designed as a mechaniloid to be used for undersea stealth bombardments, originally, but my infrared-resistant stone armor was deemed too costly to mass-produce, so they took me, the only working prototype, and replaced my mechaniloid programming with a reploid mind, and upgraded me to function on my own. My original posting was commanding officer of the 8th Armor, after The X-Hunters Incident. I made a grievous error when defending The Maverick Hunter HQ against Dr. Doppler's Maverick forces prior to The Dopplertown Conflict, however: I allowed Mavericks to penetrate the outer perimeter, and my attempts to stop them resulted in the destruction of a large portion of the Communications Tower. Now I am the Unit's heavy weapon's man and rear guard, jobs that I am suited to with my Slate Armor and Heavy Laser Cannons. My Combat Abilities are ranked Class A," Slate sat back down and pointed to Smith.

Smith pulled out a carrot and took a bite out of it, chewing slowly as he spoke. "I was designed to replace Vava as the single most well-armed Hunter in the entire organization. Originally I was in the 17th Elite, in Vava's old spot. More times than I can count, I was new weapon subroutines, so I was skilled in weapons that fit the current mission profile, and was modified to carry said weapons. During the assault on the X-Hunter's Mechaniloid Factory, however, I took a hit from their artillery, and my Ride Chaser went down, taking me with it. I was rebuilt, but significant changes had to be made to my body, not the least of which was the removal of all my integral weapons systems. Eventually, after Zero was recovered from the X-Hunters, I was transferred to The 0 Special Ops, since I still had the training and skills needed to use almost any weapon ever developed. Even now, I've got subroutines for about fifty weapons I don't actually have. My claim to fame in the Hunters was actually being ranked as GA for a short time, though my current rank is only SA. My skill set makes me the logical choice as the 21st's Point Man, and I'm still the local weapon's specialist."

"Don't forget about how you got into this Unit," Sharp reminded Smith.

"… And I'm IN the 21st because I have temper problems, which Zero was a lot less forgiving about than X was."

Sharp raised an eyebrow, and gestured for him to keep going.

"… Apparently, if someone makes a dick joke about your love of carrots, you aren't allowed to gouge his eye out with one," Smith finished.

Kingfisher whistled. "No matter how many times I hear that story, it never gets old. Commander," she said, turning to Blaze, "This is THE angriest reploid in the world."

"I stand by my assertion that that outburst was fully justified."

"Anyways, Lt. Pissy, my turn," Kingfisher interrupted. "As I'm sure you've guessed, Commander, I'm here because I've got a mouth on me. I constantly insult people. Used to get on Storm Eagle's nerves a LOT back when I was in The 7th Air Cavalry. Come to think of it… I think you were there with me for a while."

"… Yep," Blaze nodded. The familiarity she had been feeling turned into outright recollection.

And apparently she wasn't the only one. "Aha! I knew I recognized you! You're the one I used to call 'sack of hammers' since you couldn't fly!"

"…"

"Anyways, Eagle usually shut me up by threatening to transfer me to the 13th Polar Warfare. And he could have done it, since Chill Penguin had been bugging him about trading for me for a while before The Sigma Revolt. Given what happened after, I guess I woulda been better off there, eh?" Kingfisher laughed again, before continuing, "Because after Eagle goes and gets himself infected by the Sigma Virus, the new commander shows up, and listens to me for about five minutes before throwing me out. What an ass, eh?"

"… You did call him a 'mother-fucking pussy' to his face just because he didn't espouse 'bum-rush' as the whole of squad strategy," Blaze noted.

"Oh c'mon. That was just Air Force Banter! We all talked like that!"

"… No…it was actually just you."

"… Really?"

"Yep."

"Well shit…" Kingfisher glowered for a moment, then continued as if nothing had happened, "Anyways, here we are, together again. I'm The Unit's air support, which puts me in charge of air strikes, recon, and whatever else someone needs wings to do. I'm also a Class A master of killing shit with these Razor Icicles," Kingfisher said proudly, gesturing to the blades of ice that acted as her wing feathers. "Dust, you're up."

Dust turned to her, raising one eyebrow. When she failed to get the hint, he just gave a resigned hissed, and held out a palm to Blaze.

" He's asking if he can use your data pad, Commander," Sharp filled in the blank for her.

"Oh. Sure…" Blaze quickly handed him the small screen. Dust immediately began to write on the screen, using the stylus. When he was done, he handed it to Sharp, who began to read it aloud.

"I was a member of The 4th Desert Combat, serving under Flame Mammoth. When Sigma infected the Unit, I was infected as well. I fought off the infection as well as I could, putting myself into "sleep mode" if you will. I was given to Dr. Doppler for study before his infection by Sigma, and was administered an early version of the antivirus. It was incomplete however, and several program defects persisted, chief among them my inability to speak. Little could be done to fix the problem, since the virus had left my primary code in a somewhat unstable state, and any attempt to alter it could have resulted in my demise or driven me insane, possibly Maverick. I was temporarily transferred to the 14th, since the 4th had, with the exception of myself, been completely absorbed into the Maverick ranks. My inability to speak left me without any communication in the field, but I was unwilling to retire from duty, so I was placed in The 21st until a way was found to restore my speaking abilities. I'm a Class A swordsman, famous for my Dusty Claw Technique. In The 21st, I act as the cleaner of the group, mopping up leftovers. Or I would, if we ever actually fought any. In fact I'm gonna go ahead and be the one to point out that ALL of- Seriously, Dust?" Sharp stopped, turning to Dust.

Dust merely hissed and shrugged.

"Okay, fine… ALL of our team positions are based on the current working plan, which we have never had opportunity to test," Sharp sighed, "Okay, I concede that Smith and Dust both make an excellent point.

Dust hissed once, then gestured to Strike.

"Is it my turn? Okay then," Strike began, "I was initially assigned to the 14th. Like Commander X, however, I seem to have developed some pacifistic tendencies. That is not to say that I am a pacifist, but I do hesitate to fight any enemy that I know to be influenced by the Maverick Virus. If I know that a reploid is a Maverick because it decided humans were inferior, however, I have no problem killing them. Still, my unwillingness to fight quickly got on Magma Dragoon's nerves, and when Firestorm was reassigned to the 21st, Dragoon found a way to get me sent with him. Now, I act as left side defense for the team. My abilities are currently ranked Class B, but as X has demonstrated, that is not necessarily indicative of weakness. Any Maverick who I've hit with a Venom Sting can attest to that."

Strike then turned to Firestorm, "Would you like to tell your own story, or are you leaving it to me?"

"… You do it."

"Fair enough. Firestorm here was a longtime member of The 14th, and the personal apprentice of Magma Dragoon before The Repliforce War. He knows several of Dragoon's skills, including the deadly Rising Fire. Even though I outranked him, Dragoon basically gave him the title of second in command of the Unit, until General Signas was first began assisting Dr. Cain as the Commander-in-Chief of the Hunters. In a similar manner to how he tested you, Commander, he…"

Firestorm clapped a hand to his forehead, and shook his head slowly.

"…punched Signas in the face."

The entire table burst out laughing. Even Blaze allowed herself a small grin.

Firestorm immediately responded, "Look! If I have to take orders from someone, I want to know I shouldn't be the one giving THEM orders!"

"… Did Signas prove himself to your satisfaction?' Blaze asked.

"…" Firestorm turned away, glowering.

"Since Firestorm needed his entire face remolded, I'd say so," Strike answered. "If only you could have seen his face when the first thing he heard when he woke up was that he was that he was being transferred to The 21st. Dragoon was more than a little annoyed with his star pupil for disgracing himself so blatantly. Of course, Dragoon went on to disgrace himself infinitely worse less than a week after," Strike had to stifle another chuckle. "Still, despite his discipline problems, he's a Class A fighter, and acts as right side defense."

Omicron immediately stood up, knowing that it was his turn. "I actually was never assigned to a Unit before this one. And since I've never actually been on a mission, I don't have a combat rank. But I was built by Dr. Cain based off of Sigma's original designs. So yes, I do resemble Sigma's Hunter form for a reason. Dr. Cain was trying to redeem himself for creating Sigma by proving that it was not a failure in the programming modifications he made to Sigma that allowed Sigma to turn Maverick. In theory, my skills should be similar to his, and I should be able to operate at Class SA level. My inexperience probably reduces me to B Class, however. In The 21st, I just sort of act as back up to whoever needs assistance. Usually I'm assisting Strike or Firestorm, since my primary weapon is a beam saber, and my blaster has a very short range." Omicron sat down as he finished, and pointed at Lifesaver.

"Oh for the love of… Why do I have to go?" Lifesaver asked, "I'm not even a Hunter!"

Everyone simply stared at him.

"… Oh fine. I'm a Lifesaver unit, like any other, except for, you know, not being a stiff-ass about everything. As to why I'm here… let's just say Firestorm isn't the first patient I've refused to treat on the grounds of it 'being his own damn fault'. Okay, I'm done. Your turn, Commander."

"…" Blaze stood up slowly. What was she supposed to tell them? That she was a scared little girl who was afraid of the dark, and had a phobia of death? Was she supposed to say that every Unit she'd ever been in had been either wiped out or severely injured? No. That would be a very bad idea. But what could she say, then? There was only one thing she could do:

Lie. Or at the very least, omit HEAVILY.

"I was created by a man named Dr. Gregory Setsura. I-"

"Dr. Setsura?" Smith interrupted, "The nanobots researcher?"

"… _Shi_."

"The same doctor who was killed in a Maverick attack a few years ago?" Kingfisher asked.

"…_Shi_."

"And you're his sole reploid creation?" Firestorm asked.

"_Shi_… Why, for the love of _suoyou de dou shidang,_ am I telling my life story if you guys already know it?"

"… Because if you are who you say you are, you should be dead," Strike said evenly.

"The doctor's death was all over the news, and the reports stated that a reploid who had been more or less beaten to death was also discovered," Kingfisher explained, "I remember almost getting sick after I heard the report."

"…" Well, so much for lying. "… Yeah. That was me. So, since you know the short version, I suppose I should give you the long version. I was activated for the first time to the sound of alarm klaxons. Six Mavericks had broken into the lab, apparently intent on stealing my dad's research. He warned me on the communication system to get out, but then the Mavericks attacked. I listened to him kill three of them with nothing more than this sword, before a Maverick called 'Ursa' ripped him apart. When I finally forced myself to leave, I discovered that the only exit was directly through the Mavericks. They discovered me when they decided to search the room I had been hidden in, and I was forced to fight Ursa. My combat systems weren't quite complete at the time, and even with one of his arms severed, Ursa pretty much, as Kingfisher put it, beat me to death, biting off my right leg, gouging out one of my eyes, smashing most of my frame, and rupturing most of my internal systems, not to mention painting the room with my blood. When a Maverick they called 'Jackrabbit' finally said that they had 'a schedule to keep', Ursa snapped my neck, telling me I was 'lucky'. It took me about 19 minutes after that to actually die."

"… I was one of the Hunters who responded to the distress signal. I was on clean up duty as punishment from Sting Chameleon for breaking radio silence during an important mission," Sharp said, shuddering slightly, "I think I actually DID get sick when I saw what had happened to you. I was sure I should've been carrying you in a body bag, not a stretcher. We couldn't even I.D. you, the damage was so great. When I asked the Lifesaver Unit on duty what the chances of reviving you were, he just stared at me and said, 'You're kidding, right?'"

"… That's more or less it…" Blaze said, her voice flat despite the fact that she was shuddering badly from the memory, "The Lifesaver who treated me was amazed that I had been repairable. Usually, repairing a severed neural system is impossible, but he did it, and didn't even remember doing it."

There was a long silence, as The Hunters all stared at here, mouths at least partly agape.

Smith finally broke the silence. "That is pretty fucked up."

Blaze took a deep breath to try and steady herself. Failing that, she continued. "Anyways, the Hunters rebuilt me, and were able to salvage my designs to finish the systems my dad never got to finish. I was originally put into the 14th Melee, but it wasn't very long before Dragoon had me traded to the 4th Desert Combat. Flame Mammoth, however, had a prejudice against anyone less than 6 feet tall, and traded me to the 7th Air Cavalry. Then Eagle finally succumbed to the Maverick Virus, and the new Commander, after getting rid of Kingfisher for insulting him to his face, traded me over to the rebuilt 9th Black Ops because I couldn't fly. I served there for a month, before I was traded over to the 8th Armor. This trading went on until my promotion to Commander and subsequent assignment here. In fact, I've probably met all of you before: I've been in every Unit except The 0 Special Ops, The 6th Navy, The 13th Polar Warfare, and The 17th Elite. I'm ranked at Class A, I'm skilled in several styles of martial arts, I'm a decent swordfighter, and I've got a bit of a reputation as a trick shooter. As for why I'm in the 21st… I'm _feng le _in more than a few ways, including, but not limited to, being afraid of the dark." Blaze finished there, deciding that the jinx was still best left unmentioned. Blaze looked around, and saw she had made an absolutely fantastic impression on her new unit. "… Unless there's anything else, I'm going to my bunk."

Blaze turned and walked out of the mess hall, trying to hide her shakiness. Her success was marginal at best.

* * *

Blaze had developed a technique that allowed her to recharge without going to sleep. Since her subconscious mind was fixated on her death, and sleeping put that fixation into nightmare form, she had developed a sort of meditation, which put her in limbo between asleep and awake. It was a slow recharge, but it was more effective in the end, since her sleep was always cut short by her nightmares anyway.

She entered her quarters, which were fairly spartan in appearance, and knelt in the center of the floor, breathing deeply. She drew energy into herself, focusing on what she had learned about her new team.

Slate had made a tactical error, but seemed to be, overall, pretty reliable. Smith was definitely competent, as long as he didn't get insulted. Kingfisher was going to be a pest, but Blaze had put up with her before, and obviously the rest of the team had managed to do so as well. Dust was actually not a washout, but was just on a "temporary leave" of sorts, until his condition could be cured. Strike would be easy to get along with, thanks to his peaceful nature. Firestorm, by contrast, was a warrior, and by beating him, she'd wounded his ego. She'd have to watch him. Omicron was a rank amateur, eager to please his superiors in any way he could. And then there was Sharp. He was a pretty amiable guy, and seemed to be watching out for her while she adjusted to being in charge.

Overall, they didn't seem like a bad crew. She'd been in worse, at any rate.

"Commander!" Sharp shouted through the door, breaking her away from her thoughts.

"… _Ching jin_," Blaze answered after a moment.

"… What?"

"Come in," Blaze translated for him.

Sharp entered, and threw a stiff salute. "Ma'am, our sensors just picked up some kind of explosion!"

"_Shi ma_?"

"… Uh…"

Blaze sighed, "Really?"

"Oh! Yes ma'am!"

"Where?"

"South of here."

"… We're at the North Pole. EVERYTHING is south of us. Can you be more specific?"

"I can show you. Come down to the main hub." With that, Sharp turned and left.

"… _Yeh lu jwo duo luh jwohn whei jian guay_… So much for this Unit never seeing any action…" Blaze rose to her feet and followed after Sharp.

* * *

The brown stuff is about to hit the fan, people…

Again, all reviews are appreciated.


	5. Encounter

So, here we are: The first meeting between The Ragtag Twenty-Worst, and the Juggernaut known as Nightshade.

And it only took me 5 chapters to get to it. Go me (Sarcasm) .

Anyway, I hope everyone enjoys the latest chapter.

Read, Review, and all that.

**Blaze, Nightshade, The Twenty-Worst, and all other characters previously indicated to be mine © Me**

**All Others © Capcom

* * *

**

Ride Chasers were fun.

Blaze cracked a small grin as she tore across the endless fields of snow. The exhilaration of what would be literally breakneck speeds for a human was merely a rush for her. It briefly took her mind of the fact that something had EXPLODED in the ARCTIC, ruling out any kind of natural occurrence.

The explosion was too strong to have been caused by anything that the Hunters would have allowed an independent party to operate unsupervised. Blaze had determined this simply from the energy readings of the blast. This meant it was Mavericks. And if the Mavericks had something hidden in the Arctic, it meant that they didn't want ANYBODY finding out about it, even other Mavericks. And THAT meant that whatever it was would have been extremely dangerous.

But all that could wait. Blaze was rarely so unconcerned, but any amount of time spent driving a Ride Chaser was an exception. Her enhanced reflexes meant that she could pull off tricks that would make a lesser Hunter crash and burn. Even X had called her crazy once, after seeing her performance on the vehicle, and X was infamous for insanity on the hovering bikes. His suicide run on The X-Hunter's Mechaniloid factory in particular was well known, though his high-speed pursuit of Jet Stingray was rapidly gaining fame.

Blaze's heavily modified Adion Ride Chaser, "Molotov Cocktail", was one of her only personal possessions, apart from her sword and gun. It lacked even the normal light armor, which was minimalist itself. It also lacked any onboard weapons, but Blaze was more than skilled enough to shoot down a target with her revolver from the speeding bike, and beyond that had a habit of zipping past enemies, cutting them down with her katana. In short, "Molotov" was an engine with a seatbelt, the latter of which was rarely used, since Blaze was fond of leaping off of the bike to attack enemies from the air, an uncharacteristically dangerous move for her. The mechanics, in an attempt to be funny, had painted the vehicle with flame patterns. Blaze had initially been inclined to repaint it its original steel gray, but found she liked the flames and how Mavericks were intimidated by it. After the Ride Chaser had gone down during a chase alongside the 4th, ironically by catching on fire from the blast of a napalm mine, Blaze had requested that the flame pattern be restored, and the design had stuck ever since.

As Blaze did a "wheelie", she was glad that her "first life" hadn't given her a fear of high-speed chases. She looked behind at her team, each member with his or her own mode of transport. Smith was driving a bright red hover-car, while Sharp rode shotgun. Omicron rode a Cheval Ride Chaser with a more standard armament and a green paint job. Dust was skillfully maneuvering an Adion, which still bore its desert camouflage paint job. Kingfisher was flying. Slate was using his surprisingly powerful dash thrusters to glide over the snow, with speed that Blaze wouldn't have expected from the bulky Hunter, especially since both Strike and Firestorm were in tow.

"Want me to try and get a better look, Commander?" Kingfisher asked over the com-link.

Blaze gave a thumbs up.

"Simple 'Yes' woulda sufficed," Kingfisher chuckled as she rose sharply, flying ahead.

"See anything?" Sharp asked.

"… Hell yes. Shit DEFINITELY went down here, guys," Kingfisher whistled, "Looks like an underground bunker collapsed."

"Collapsed? The radar picked up an explosion," Omicron piped in.

"Calm your hormones, rookie. The rubble looks like it was brought straight down, but there was an explosion, as evidenced by the…" Kingfisher cleared her throat theatrically, before declaring, "BIG. FUCKING. CRATER."

"Any sign of survivors?"

"Nothing. Just a buncha dead lab techs."

"Killed by the explosion?"

"Can't tell. Something definitely did a number on them, but I'll have to get closer."

"_D'un yi shia_ for us," Blaze ordered before jamming on the accelerator. After a moment she added, "… In other words, wait for us."

* * *

The place was a complete mess. The explosion hadn't killed the techs, but it had certainly done a number on the corpses. Their bodies were riddled with small, finger-sized holes that had been burned by plasma. And the explosion was definitely from a reactor. It operated with unstable forms of energy, but needed lower levels of them to generate the same amount of power, thus rendering it undetectable.

Unless of course, a power surge causes it to explode.

"Anyone find a non-tech body?" Sharp asked on the radio.

"Found someone's head," Smith answered matter-of-factly, "I can't ID it though. You guys may want to check it out though. I can't be sure, but it doesn't look like it was removed by the explosion. In fact, I think this guy was decapitated."

"Lovely," Strike groaned.

"Great," Kingfisher scowled, "You guys can check out the severed head. I'm gonna see if I can spot anything else." With that, she launched into the air.

Blaze, meanwhile, had been trying, without success, to get a small data pad to work. It still had power, but it just kept flashing various pieces of combat data, seemingly without pattern. Finally, exasperated, she dropped the computer and headed over to regroup with the team.

"There's no plasma burn on the wound. Whatever weapon made this cut did it purely by virtue of being really fucking sharp," Firestorm said, examining the head. Looking up and seeing Blaze approach, he grinned. "Wanna have a look, 'Commander'?" he asked, still mockingly emphasizing the word "Commander".

"Sure-" Blaze froze as she looked at the head. It had been burned by the explosion, but it was still recognizable as a bear. But not just any bear. The face she found herself staring at had haunted her nightmares her entire life. She was suddenly hit by the sickening feeling that if they looked around hard enough, they'd find a matching corpse with an obviously reattached arm.

Her memories of the Maverick that killed her came flooding back with such force that she was almost puked. She stumbled back, her body quaking.

"Commander?!" Sharp asked, alarmed. He immediately rushed over to steady her. "What is it?"

"… W-we n-need t-to g-get o-out o-of h-here…" Blaze stammered. She couldn't explain it, but Ursa's presence, dead or alive, was some sort of warning.

"What?"

"We need to get out of here! _MA SHONG_!"

Suddenly, Blaze heard a light footfall from behind, and instinctively spun and fired a round at it. The small plasma bullet burned several inches into a pile of junk. Blaze was left stock-still.

"What the hell was that?" Smith asked.

"There was…" Blaze murmured, "… I KNOW there was…"

Without warning, a hail of red plasma bullets fired upward at Kingfisher. The Team spun to try and figure out where the shots were coming from.

"SON OF A BITCH!" Kingfisher shouted, trying to dodge the cloud of plasma bolts that was swarming around her. She released several icicles from her wings, which immediately fell, until they hit the ground and sunk several feet in. By the time they hit, however, the assailant was long gone.

"Where is he?!" Omicron shouted.

"Urk-!" Slate suddenly grunted in pain and stumbled forward, a large gash cut into his chest. Whatever blade had done it left no residue of plasma, but had cut all the way down to the circuits.

"Slate!" Strike shouted.

"Everyone, MOVE!" Smith shouted, just before another rain of red plasma was unleashed on them. The team scattered, with the exception of Slate, who stood his ground and countered the hail with a few rounds from his own laser cannons. The bright green beams burned through the rubble before finally dissipating. Unfortunately, the majority of the assailant's shots hit Slate directly.

"You alright Slate?" Smith asked.

"His blade was sharp, but his blaster is nothing special," Slate bellowed. He must have been grinning.

Blaze drew her revolver, as her Team fired in all directions.

"See anything, Fisher?" Sharp shouted.

"Nothing but you guys blasting shit in all directions. Wait… SHIT! COMMANDER, BEHIND-!"

Blaze had already heard him. She spun, her revolver drawn, and pointed directly at the assailant. His gun was pointed right between her eyes. Immediately, sacrificing her shot, Blaze used her own gun arm to knock the attacker's aim off, as a spray of red plasma issued from the barrel. As his gun flew wide of its target, Blaze continued her attack and shot the attacker in the wrist, causing him to release the weapon. She brought her revolver swinging back in an attempt to strike his temple, but he used a knife hand to strike her wrist, then a roundhouse punch to her jaw to send her to the ground. She landed on one hand, and spun for a kick, but he was prepared, stopping it by kicking her in the ankle. Blaze tried to drive her other foot into his stomach, the same trick she had used on Firestorm earlier the same day, but he simply caught her leg, and swung her over his head, smashing her into the ground. As Blaze rose, she heard a menacing click, and was once again staring down the barrel of her attacker's gun.

"COMMANDER!" Omicron shouted, drawing his emerald-green beam saber, igniting it, and charging the gray-armored machine with incredible speed, his accelerators leaving ghost-trails in his wake as he body slammed his enemy. As they both crashed into the ground, the assailant kicked Omicron off him, and rolled to his feet, drawing a katana with a crimson blade of crystal. Omicron was quickly on his feet, and dashed at the attacker, taking a precise swipe at him. As their blades met, however, Omicron's mysteriously shorted out, and only a quick dodge saved him from impalement.

"Damn," Omicron swore as he reactivated his blade. He charged again, dodging rather than parrying, trying to get in a disabling strike on his enemy.

"Shit," Sharp whistled, dashing over up to Blaze and offering her a hand, "He's definitely Cain's boy. Haven't seen anybody move quite like that since Sigma himself. You okay, Commander?"

"Uh-huh…" Blaze slowly rose to her feet. She went for her revolver, but felt nothing at her hip but the magnetic holster. As she was about to grab the gun from the ground, she saw Omicron fire a short burst of energy shots from the crystal in his forehead. The attacker was knocked off balance by the surprise attack, and his sword was thrown from his hand. Omicron charged at him, seeing his chance. He didn't see the attacker's right hand turn a glossy black.

"… _Go se_! OMICRON! STAY BACK!" Blaze shouted, charging at the attacker, grabbing her revolver.

"What?" Omicron faltered for a moment and looked at her, just long enough for the attacker to drive his hand through his armor into his chest. Omicron froze as Blaze stared in shock.

"ROOKIE!" Kingfisher shouted, diving toward them.

"…ARRGH!" Omicron suddenly went wild, shooting overcharged shots from his forehead crystal, and swinging his blade, which was pulsating with energy, like a mad man, screaming madly the entire time. Every step left a ghost trail from his overdrive going out of control. Finally, Omicron burst apart in a flash of light.

"_Liu kou shui de biao zi he hou zi de er zi_!" Blaze hissed as she charged the attacker, drawing her katana. The attacker dove for his own blade, and swung it. But before Blaze could reach him, his blade had somehow changed into a segmented whip, and lashed out at her. She was able to deflect it, but it cost her some stability, and she was knocked back by a flying kick. She was sent bouncing across the ground as the attacker grabbed his gun and opened fire on Sharp and Smith, who were taking aim at him. They both dove out of the way as the attacker spun, still firing, towards Kingfisher, and shot her several times in the abdomen, then continued his spin, pinning down Strike with plasma, and finally spun, striking a charging Firestorm with the butt of the gun, and then knocking him away with a thrust kick. Firestorm crashed into the ground, and didn't rise. Dust attempted a spinning slash, the wind he generated kicking up a storm of snow and dust. The attacker stopped him by kicking him in the shoulder, reversing Dust's spin and launching him back, before firing several rounds that Dust ended up taking in the legs.

Blaze, however, had managed to eat the pain and launch herself into a somersault slash that buried her blade into the attacker's shoulder.

And he stood there and took it. With the blade still embedded into him, he reached out and grabbed Blaze by the throat, holding her above the ground. He held up his other hand, which had turned the same glossy black as it had when he killed Omicron.

"… _Yeh su_…_ta ma duh_…" Blaze's heart was racing. She struggled desperately, but couldn't find the strength to pull her sword out of his chest and strike.

The assailant stared at her had he drove his hand into her chest, just missing her circulatory pump, reaching her main neural cord.

Blaze was unaware of these details. All she knew was that it hurt like a bitch.

She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. The tears were in no short supply, however. The only positive thought she could generate was that unlike Ursa, this bastard wasn't enjoying her pain.

Suddenly, red sparks of electricity began coursing through her system, as amber-gold electricity shot through his. The two energies mingled at the point where he had struck her, and both were thrown back. She landed on one knee, looking to see that his hand, still glossy black, had streaks of silver over it, mixing with his hand. As it did, the red lightning began circling her chest wound, and gold lightning circled the same area on his chest. Trying to bite through the pain, Blaze raised her gun, but was slow to aim. The pain seemed to be getting worse every second. As she stared at her enemy, she saw that he was having similar problems aiming his gun. They were in a snail's paced race to see who could shoot the other first.

They fired at the same time. Blaze's shot punched a hole in the center of the large plasma blast that fired from his gun. The buster wave struck her, but the blast was diffused, and she was able to take the blast. She watched as her shot hit him squarely between his eyes.

And the blinding pain that hit her between her own eyes floored her almost instantly. She clutched her head, the pain almost unbearable.

Had she been hit? No. He'd only fired one blast at her, and it had been weakened by her shot. She raised herself up on one arm, gazing painfully at him, red light clouding her vision. She saw that the same pain was incapacitating him. He, however, still had enough power to raise his gun. But how was that possible? He still had a hole burned all the way through his skull. How could he be alive, let alone still fighting? His aim was shaky, but with his gun and at this range, there was little chance he wouldn't hit her.

"Commander, down!" Slate shouted.

Blaze didn't need a second warning: she immediately dropped flat on the ground, and watched as Slate hit their enemy dead-on with the full force of both barrels. She barely had registered the sight of his body above the waist disintegrating into the twin green beams before the pain of disintegration lanced through her entire torso. She screamed in agony before finally passing out from sensory overload.

* * *

"Oh hell…" Sharp murmured as he saw his Commander collapse. He quickly dashed to her side, and checked her. She was still alive. He breathed a sigh of relief.

"Sharp! Watch it!" Strike shouted.

Sharp barely avoided the hail of fire that rained down on him.

"No fucking way…" Sharp stared in awe at the assailant, who had somehow survived the dual laser beams. "Just fucking DIE ALREADY!" Sharp shouted as he took aim with his long-barreled shoulder cannon and fired, striking his enemy cleanly in the chest.

"… Son of a bitch!"

Somehow, he got up from that too, raising his blaster up again.

Out of nowhere, Dust flew by on his Adion, crashing directly into the assailant while performing a wheelie. The plasma field in place of the front "wheel" smashed into the enemy, sending him flying. Almost simultaneously, Sharp felt Blaze let out a whimper of pain and writhe weakly.

An angry hiss from Dust caught his attention. Sharp turned to see Dust gesturing toward the seat of his Ride Chaser, where an unconscious Kingfisher was slumped.

"She alive?"

A fierce hiss answered in the affirmative.

"Get the Commander in here!" Smith shouted, sliding the hover car sideways up to Sharp.

"Right… We're making a retreat, everyone!" Sharp shouted into his radio as he sat Blaze into the passenger's seat of the car. "Everyone here?"

Dust hissed, and nodded towards Kingfisher. Smith nodded, before closing the door. Slate called out in affirmative, as Strike loaded an unconscious Firestorm onto his back before hopping on himself.

"Good. Then let's get the hell out of here!" Sharp shouted, making a run for the "Molotov Cocktail". He stopped, before getting on, however, and looked at Omicron's Cheval. "Dust! Omicron's Ride is a Cheval, right?"

Dust nodded.

Sharp grinned, then turned to the bike, then back toward where the mysterious gray attacker had been sent flying. "Let's see how you like this, motherfucker!" Sharp delivered a sharp kick to the fuel canister on the side of the Cheval, then smashing the accelerator, sending it flying into the wreckage of the lab. Sharp hopped on the "Molotov" just before a massive fusion explosion consumed the area.

Sharp almost fell off when he first hit the accelerator. "The Commander's officially crazy for driving this thing…" he muttered to himself.

"Hey, Sharp!" Smith suddenly shouted over the radio.

"What?"

"The Commander just started having some kind of seizure! Red electricity's shooting through her systems, and she won't stop screaming!" This was confirmed by the agonized shrieks Sharp could hear in the background.

"What the fuck happened?!" Sharp shouted back.

"As far as I know, nothing! Was that explosion I just saw some kind of EMP?"

"No, it was just a standard fuel detonation. A little going away present for the bastard who did this. Chevals use a much more unstable fuel than Adions, so they make a really good self-propelled explosives."

"Well, it looks like the Commander's calmed down a bit, but she's still hurting, and that weird electricity is still messing with her."

"… Let's just get back to base. We can figure out what happened there." Sharp looked over his shoulder at the crater in the distance. "… I've got a nasty feeling we haven't seen the last of that guy."

* * *

Seems that Nightshade completely outclasses our heroes. But something odd is happening with both him and Blaze. I wonder what it could be…? (He said while acting as though he hadn't already given it away.)

As always, all reviews are appreciated. And many thanks to everyone who's read this far, or even read the story at all.


	6. System Link

Here we pick up with Blaze, as she discovers what the heck happened to her during her fight with the seemingly unstoppable Nightshade.

Read, Review, and Enjoy, as always.

**My Characters © Me**

**Capcom's Characters © Them

* * *

**

"_Ni how_?"

Nobody answered.

"… Hello?"

Only Blaze's own, echoing voice returned.

Where was she? As she looked around, she saw only dull light, constantly shifting around her. She couldn't even tell what she was standing on. Was she dead? It didn't seem likely, since this hadn't happened last time she died. Was she dreaming? It was possible, but she had never dreamt of anything but her death, and she couldn't find any reason for that dream not to resurface now, especially since her last conscious memories seemed to imply very heavily that she was going to die.

"Hello?"

"Hi," a cold, flat voice answered.

Blaze spun to find the source of the voice, and found herself facing the mysterious Maverick who had attacked the 21st and killed Omicron.

Blaze stumbled back, reaching for her revolver. She went cold as soon as she felt that it was not there, and tried to draw her katana. Too her horror, she realized that her katana was also missing from her belt. She turned back toward her foe, and swallowed hard. "_Ni_…"

"Me," the reploid nodded. "I'm not going to hurt you, Blaze. Not here, at any rate. Besides, I'm pretty certain that I can't do anything to you here anyway."

"Get the _guai_ out of my mind, _huen dahn_!"

"I can't do that."

"Why not?!"

"Because we're not in your mind."

"… Oh." Blaze blushed slightly, trying to calm her nerves. "Are we-"

"No, we're not in my mind either. We are, as nearly as I can tell, at a point that is roughly halfway between you and me," The gray reploid said, sitting down cross-legged.

Blaze simply stared at the reploid. His entire body, including his synthetic skin and hair, was the same metallic gray color, except for his crimson eyes. His armor looked light, but was arranged into segmented plates, which looked like they protected his entire body. He was not tall: maybe a few inches taller than Blaze. His weapons, unlike hers, remained with him in this mental construct, attached to the inner sides of his wrist armor. His face wasn't hard or rough looking. In fact, his features had a soft, handsome look. But that gentle face made him seem all the more menacing, especially in light of the display of power he had just given the Twenty-First.

After staring at him for a moment, Blaze sat down, huddling up into a ball, never taking her eyes off him.

"… Even if it is possible for us to harm each other here, we aren't going to find out through any action of mine."

"_Bi jweh_, Maverick."

"I'm not a Maverick."

"_Shi ma_?" Blaze scoffed, "Wanna explain how that works?"

"I do not 'want'. Nor do I 'not want', or 'want not'," the reploid said simply, "A Maverick is defined as a reploid who has turned against humans."

"So just because we aren't human, you think you AREN'T a Maverick for trying to murder us?!" Blaze spat.

"No. I'm not a Maverick because I'm not a reploid. I may have some similar cognitive systems, and possess similar physical traits, but my programming is only as advanced as that of a very inventive mechaniloid. But it would be most accurate to refer to me simply as a robot."

"… So, what is it about you that defines you as a robot rather than a reploid?" Blaze asked, sliding slightly closer to the "robot". The apparent lack of danger was actually allowing her curiosity to overcome her fear.

"A reploid is usually referred to as a sentient machine based on Megaman X's designs. But many reploids don't remotely resemble him. The key trait that X possesses, that robots before him, even master robots such as the original Megaman, Protoman, and Bass lacked, is a truly free will. This mental characteristic is what defines a reploid. I lack that free will. I, like those old robots, am bound by directives."

"… But you killed your creators," Blaze asked, "… You DID cause that explosion in the lab, right?"

"Yes, as per my first directive: Purify the planet," he turned to look at her for the first time since he began speaking, "The short version of that being: Kill all sentient life."

Blaze shied back slightly as he said it. "Is that why you killed Omicron?" she asked quietly.

"Yes. It's also why I tried to kill you and the rest of your Unit. It isn't anything personal against any of you."

That sentiment struck a chord with Blaze. "… I…actually kinda…GET that."

"You avoid social contact, but only because of a pathological aversion to sentient beings. You are not one to bear ill will toward people, with a few, mostly reasonable exceptions."

Blaze's eyes widened, and she turned to look at the robot, her mouth slightly agape. That exact thought had been running through her mind.

"But without the presence of others, with or without interaction, you're consumed by intense loneliness."

Blaze continued to stare. "How did…?"

"Thus, your response to these conflicting psychological aspects is to remain on the sidelines, avoiding contact, but remaining in the presence of those around you."

"… I thought you said we WEREN'T in my mind," Blaze scowled bitterly, tears forming in her eyes from hearing one of her many weaknesses laid out so plainly by an enemy.

"And as near as I can tell, we aren't. Your feelings are more or less the whole of your contribution to this construct, however, and thus they are visible to me. I can't quite read your thoughts, but your feelings govern you so much that guessing is pretty easy."

"But I can't hear your feelings?" Blaze asked, "Well, that's _how shi sung chung_," she muttered sarcastically.

"You probably can. I just don't 'feel'. And my thoughts are not 'thoughts': I don't think. I simply analyze, calculate, and conclude. To your mind, the contents of my brain would seem like streams of code."

But Blaze wasn't listening. She couldn't stand the idle chit-chat any more. "Why the _tama_ are you sitting here talking to me?! You tried to kill me, and now you're acting like nothing happened!" she screamed at him.

"The past is the past," the robot shrugged, "And any future conflicts between us are beyond my conception. If we meet again, we'll fight, or we won't. All that matters is the present, and right now, I'm here."

"Well, the past isn't past to me! And I seem to recall quite clearly that you killed Omicron! And on top of that, you hurt Fisher, Dust, Firestorm, and…" Blaze's fury fell as she realized that she had leaned in so far that she was less than an inch from the robot's face. His continued silence and empty gaze unnerved her, and she sat back down.

"And I almost killed you."

"… That too…"

There was a long, painful silence, as Blaze stared down at her feet, and the robot continued to stare at her.

"… Could you stop staring at me?"

"Yes I could. And I imagine that, since you asked, you want me to do so."

"… _Shi_."

The robot complied without any delay.

"… Why are you listening to me? Why do you care?"

"I don't care: Caring is beyond my mental functions. Which is exactly why I'm listening. I am incapable of deeming something 'not worth my time'."

"… Oh." Blaze glanced at him, then looked back at the ground. "So, do you know ALL of my weaknesses and mental problems?"

"I know all the ones you won't stop thinking about, or at least have thought about at some point since you came here. Yes, that does include your fear of dying, as well as your desire to die."

"… _Shuh muh_?" Blaze replayed the statement in her mind. "What do you mean, 'my desire to die'? I turn into a sobbing ball of terror when I'm faced with even POTENTIAL death, or did you not notice the tears when you tried to kill me?"

"Your 'first life', is the core of most of your personality quirks. Your fear of the dark comes from the darkness you awoke in, and died in. Your first experience with living beings was a brutal murder at the hands of Mavericks, which causes your pathological distrust of ALL sentient life. But you died alone, which created a void in you that you need the presence of others to fill. And the pain you felt as you died is ingrained so deeply into you that you will do anything in your power to avoid dying."

"… Right so far…" Blaze again curled up, shame at being so unable to hide her emotions welling up in her.

"But when compared to that pain, the peacefulness of BEING dead makes life seem infinitely cheaper to you."

"… What does that mean?"

"You fear dying. You desire to BE dead," the robot explained, "If there was a guaranteed way to transgress straight from life to death without the usually messy and/or painful interim, you would take that path in an instant."

"…" Blaze was now fighting down the urge to break into sobs.

"I don't claim to know you better than you know yourself. I'm just analyzing what I'm feeling in you."

"I thought you said you didn't have feelings."

"I don't. You do."

"And?"

"We've somehow become linked. My attempts to infect you with the 'Rage Virus' somehow scrambled our nanobot structures."

"Nanobot…? But I'm just a normal reploid," Blaze asked, confused.

"Your primary frame is. Your neural and power systems, however, are comprised of nanites similar to the ones that my body is built from."

"I didn't even know YOU were nanite-based," Blaze mumbled, "But it DOES explain why you wouldn't stay down even after I shot you in the face."

"And why you felt it when I was shot," the robot added, "Our nervous systems were scrambled when I struck you, and now my systems react when you are injured, because my body believes I'm injured."

"And I feel pain when you're damaged."

"More specifically, you feel whatever 'pain' I detect."

"And it keeps looping back and forth between us, getting worse every cycle," Blaze finished, beginning to understand. "I assume you survived Slate's laser attack."

"But of course," the robot confirmed. "I wouldn't be here if I hadn't. In fact… There is a good chance that you wouldn't be either."

"… _Shuh muh_?" Blaze repeated, feeling a cold wave of terror shoot up her spine.

"Depending on how deeply linked our systems are, either of our lives terminating could trigger the same in the other. If we're closely linked enough, if one of us dies, then whatever part of the dead party integrated into the other will also die, which could cause the other's system to crash if the system had come to depend on the other's switched parts. The likelihood that we will begin using each other's nanites as our own is high, and given that they are neural nanites, it is likely that they will become important parts of our respective systems."

"… Well… That really sucks…" Blaze gave a nervous laugh, but her body was shuddering with terror at the thought of dying from a system collapse. She actually found herself having trouble breathing, almost hyperventilating. The tears she had been holding back began to flow out, though the sobs were kept at bay by the breathing trouble she was already experiencing. Without being conscious of it, she brought her thumb up to her mouth and began chewing on the tip hard enough that if it were her real body she would have broken the skin. All she could think about was how badly she didn't want to die like that.

Suddenly, Blaze felt a pair of arms wrapped around her shoulders. She blushed a deep red as she finally pieced together, through the shock, that the robot was hugging her. She should have been terrified. She should have shoved him away, or at least asked him to let her go.

But she didn't. She simply asked, "What are you doing?" her voice barely above a whisper.

"… I," the robot seemed confused by his own actions, "I was somewhat hoping that you could tell me."

"…" All Blaze could think about was how surprisingly warm the embrace was.

"Perhaps I let your emotions feed into me too much… I felt an…urge to hug you…" the robot finally spoke again, his voice bearing some uncertainty, "… And I acted before it occurred to me to resist this…urge, possibly because I have never experienced…impulse."

"… Must have been my loneliness…or something…" Blaze mumbled, only half paying attention. She briefly wondered whether the hug was in fact caused by her loneliness, some other emotion of hers, or was the robot's reaction to it, but was too flustered to think about it clearly.

Actually, she wondered why she wasn't petrified of the robot. This manifestation of a threat to her life which she had previously failed horrendously to neutralize should have reduced her to paralyzed tears. And yet her eyes were not any wetter than the emotions she had already been experiencing warranted. And she had not attacked him, nor had she run. Despite her outbursts, she actually felt more at ease in the robot's mental presence than she had even felt in the company of fellow Hunters, even before he had revealed that he was not a reploid. In fact, she had to wonder why that revelation had then made her even MORE comfortable. She thought back on the robot's words.

"Pathological distrust of ALL sentient life," he had said.

"… He's alive, to be sure, and intelligent to boot, but he isn't 'sentient'…" she murmured absent-mindedly.

"That's one way of putting it," he said in the same cold, calm voice. Blaze, however, found that the utter neutrality was actually…pleasant to her. Though she felt disgusted with herself for doing it, she relaxed into his embrace, leaning her head against his shoulder, and wrapping her arms around one of his.

"_Wai_… do you have a name?"

"Nightshade," the robot responded, his voice once again cold and calm.

"… Well, Nightshade… it's nice to meet you, you murdering _ching soh_…" she whispered.

* * *

So, how many of you DIDN'T see this coming?

I'm guessing not too many.

Anyways, thanks in advance for all reviews/comments.


	7. The Greater Escape

I really made this one up as I went along, but I think it turned out halfway-decent.

As always, I hope you, good reader, enjoy this piece of literary half-assism, and review/comment.

**My Characters © Me**

**Capcom's © Them

* * *

**

"This is gonna hurt _jien ta duh guay_, isn't it?" Blaze mumbled to nobody in particular as she woke from her slumber. A sharp pain in her chest immediately prompted her to hiss a sharp, "Yeah… There it is…" After a moment, Blaze was finally able to open her glowing eyes and look around the medical ward. The entire team was there, most with at least minor injuries.

"This is the second time I've suffered blunt head trauma today," Firestorm was muttering as Lifesaver wrapped several bandages around his now-helmet-less head.

"Look on the bright side," Strike smiled at him. "At least this time, you didn't deserve it."

"God dammit, Strike, Shut UP!"

"This is hard enough without you yelling, moron," Lifesaver growled dangerously, "That little matter of this NOT being your fault for once is the only reason I'm repairing you."

"Sorry…" Firestorm sighed, adopting an uncharacteristic submissiveness.

A loud retching sound pierced the room. Blaze turned weakly to see Kingfisher throwing up circulatory fluid and shreds of metal into a bucket. Dust was sitting next to her, holding her shoulders as she shuddered violently. Both were wrapped in bandages beneath their damaged armor, Kingfisher around her midsection, and Dust around both his legs.

"Does someone want to explain to me what the hell just happened?" Smith scowled, "We just got torn apart by one damn' Maverick. And the guy didn't even break a sweat."

"Cut straight through my armor," Slate rumbled from beside him.

"I'm guessing," Sharp said, trying to calm everyone, "That that Maverick was the project that the lab was established for."

"He's not a Maverick…" Blaze murmured.

"Commander?" Sharp turned at the sound of her voice. He smiled wryly as he helped her sit up. "How ya feelin'?"

"Like _da shiong la se la ch'wohn tian_…" Blaze said flatly.

"… And that means what exactly?"

"You don't want to know. I'm still alive. Let's leave it at that."

"We were worried you weren't gonna make it, Commander. When I saw him skewer you, I thought we were gonna lose you the same way we lost Omicron," Sharp propped another pillow behind her as he continued, "But what's this about him not being a Maverick?"

"He's not a reploid: he's a robot. Robots can't go Maverick," Blaze answered.

"This is all very fascinating," Firestorm interrupted, venom in his voice, "But I think the pertinent question is this: How the hell did you know that something was going to go wrong?" he asked Blaze accusingly.

"Oh for the love of…" Strike growled, "Dammit, Storm! Can you stop being an insubordinate ass for TWO FUCKING SECONDS?! I'm sure the Commander just picked up on something we didn't, right ma'am?"

"… Yeah," Blaze answered, clutching her chest with one hand as she painfully formed words, "That Maverick head that Smith found… I recognized it."

"The bear? Where'd you recognize it from?" Sharp asked.

"… That head used to belong to Ursa, the Maverick that killed me eleven years ago."

"…" Sharp and Smith looked at each other, then, in unison, muttered, "Well, fuck."

"Someone want to clue me in?" Firestorm asked, realizing that this was indeed serious business.

"Remember when the Commander was telling us how she died?" Sharp asked him.

"That's the only part of her story I remember," Firestorm said sarcastically, before Strike slapped him in the back of his damaged cranium, silencing him quickly.

"She said that they were there to steal the research of Dr. Setsura," Smith continued, "Who, if you recall, was one of the pioneers of nanobot technology."

"Smith?" Blaze asked with a resigned sigh, "How exactly do you know so much about my dad's research?"

"Remember how I was reprogrammed and refitted for every mission I undertook, so I'd have the perfect arsenal for the job?"

Blaze nodded.

"Some of my jobs were field tests of weapons."

"…Some of which were my dad's brainchildren, right?" she sighed, realizing where Smith was going with this.

"Yes. I mostly just worked with his older projects that he had handed off to the Hunters before his death, but yeah, they were definitely early pieces of his nanomachine research."

"Did they work all right?"

"If I could have interfaced with them, I'd have been damn near-invincible."

"The point of all this is," Sharp interrupted, getting the conversation back on track, "that this Maverick, whoever he is, was most likely built using that stolen research."

"And he is therefore," Smith concluded, "capable of fucking all of us up very, VERY badly."

Blaze could tell everyone's thoughts had immediately turned to the late Omicron at this comment. Blaze berated herself for thinking it, but she couldn't help feeling glad that she was seemingly immune to that particular form of death.

"But we got rid of him back at the lab, didn't we?" Kingfisher asked, her voice hoarse.

"I don't know what happened after I blasted him with Omicron's Cheval, but nanite-based machines are notoriously tough to get rid of," Sharp answered. "Blaze, is there any way that you know of that we could kill this guy?"

Of course there was. They just had to kill her, and that would probably shut him down too. But Blaze couldn't bring herself to tell them that. She hated herself for it, but the fear in her was too strong. "… I've got nothing," she finally answered. After a moment, she added, "… I'm sorry…"

"Don't worry about it, Commander. We'll think of something."

And when they did think of something, it would probably kill her. Blaze couldn't think of anything else. But maybe that was a lie the robot had concocted to manipulate her fear of death into a defense of his own life. "No…" Blaze muttered to herself, "He's a lot of things, but he's no liar." How could she be so sure? After a moment, she realized she had no idea.

"Who's not a liar, Commander?" Sharp asked curiously, overhearing some of Blaze's mumbling.

Before Blaze could answer, the blare of alarms shot through the room.

"Oh shit…" Strike murmured.

"What is it?" Blaze asked, unfamiliar with the particular alarm in question.

"Perimeter alert. Something unpleasant is getting too close to the base," Smith responded.

"I'll bring it up on screen." Sharp ran over to a computer console and activated the security hologram.

Sure enough, Blaze saw, Nightshade was standing in the snow, right outside the perimeter shield. Blaze felt a mixture of fear and hope that Nightshade would cross the shield and incinerate himself. He'd be destroyed, and it would hopefully, at least, be a relatively quick end for her.

But she knew he was smarter than that.

"What's he doing?" Kingfisher asked.

"It looks like he's just waiting," Strike remarked.

"Well, the fucker'll be waiting for a while, since that shield will fry him on contact, and there's no way he has a weapon strong enough to break the shield," Firestorm grinned.

Dust hissed loudly and slapped Firestorm in the back of the head.

"OW! What the fuck was THAT for?!"

"You just invoked Murphy's Law," Slate growled.

"Hang on, I'm getting an energy signature… Shit." Sharp looked up from the console at Slate. "Hey Slate. Do your laser cannons happen to have enough juice to break down the perimeter shields?"

"No. Why-?" Slate froze as he realized why Sharp was asking about his cannons. "Fuck." It was the first time Blaze had heard the massive Hunter curse.

Everyone looked at the holographic image of Nightshade, who had drawn his gun. The weapon was no longer the small machinegun it had been before. The entire gun had almost completely reconfigured itself into a large cannon shape.

"No fucking way… He didn't…" Kingfisher sputtered, "He DID, didn't he?!"

Everyone knew it. Smith was just the first to say it. "He copied Slate's Laser Cannons."

The red beam of energy that issued from the barrel of the gun smashed into the shield, exploding on contact. The entire base was shaken slightly from the glacial disruption, but the shield was able to hold. Nightshade, of course, showed no reaction to this failure.

The same could not be said of Firestorm. "HA! TAKE THAT, ASSHAT!"

On the screen, however, Nightshade's gun had turned a glossy black, and was modifying itself slightly. After it returned to normal, it took a few seconds for the team to see what had changed.

Smith, as the weapons expert, was the first to realize that a buster cannon amplification crystal had been added to the barrel of the weapon. When the telltale sparks of light began drawing into the barrel, the rest of the team knew what was about to happen.

Except it was WORSE than they thought. While Nightshade's intent had only been for the buster parts to allow the laser cannon to charge up to a higher level, the nature of the beam caused another amplification as it passed through the crystal itself. As a result, what happened was WORSE than they had predicted.

The shield held for all of three seconds before it collapsed.

Smith was immediately at the weapons locker, pulling out all manner of ordinance. He tossed two massive rocket launchers to Slate, who held both of them with ease, as he disengaged his laser cannons from his back and extended them with his sub-arms. He handed Sharp a long-barreled beam rifle. The rest of the team was given various models of buster cannons, with the exception of Firestorm, who refused to handle any firearms. Even Lifesaver wielded a large Plasma Chain Gun, which he actually looked incredibly menacing with. Finally, he tossed a long Buster to Blaze, who noted that the pump-style charger was heavily reminiscent of a shotgun. Wielding it in her left hand, she drew her revolver with her right.

Smith, however, was by far the most heavily armed. In his hands were a pair of heavy looking buster pistols, and rifles, machineguns, grenades, shotguns, and every other imaginable type of one-man ordinance was hidden within his coat. Tossing one pistol into the air, he pulled out his carrot, bit off the last edible section of it, spit away the stem, and caught the gun.

Sharp simply stared at him. "Smith… How long have you been keeping these in there?"

"Since I got here."

"And you think this'll be enough to defeat him?"

"Hardly. This is just to stall him if we actually run into him."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying we should get the hell out of here while we have a chance. The transports got a few cannons attached to the underside. They MIGHT be able to put a scratch in this guy."

"… That's actually a pretty good idea." Sharp turned to Blaze. "You're the boss, Commander. Are we running?"

Blaze didn't hesitate. "_Duhn ruhn_ we are. Staying here with that _ching soh_ is a _tze sah ju yi_, and I'm not feeling very suicidal today."

"Right. Let's get to the transport, then!"

The team immediately took off down the hall, as quickly as their wounds would allow. Slate was carrying Kingfisher, and Sharp was assisting Dust, but neither were slowed significantly. In almost no time, they were one right turn away from the hallway to the landing pad.

But things were never as easy as they seemed. Smith was barely able to jump forward and avoid incineration as a massive red laser beam punched through the wall and shot across their path. Lifesaver, who'd been right behind him, wasn't so lucky, and he was engulfed by the beam and reduced to ashes.

Blaze began praying that the beam had been fired from a few dozen yards away, rather than a few dozen centimeters.

Murphy's Law kicked in for the second time that day, and Nightshade was standing right in their path when the smoke cleared. His cannon immediately melted back into its machinegun form, albeit now with a rotating set of six barrels. In his other hand, his blade had taken the shape of a heavy looking Broadsword. Sensing that Smith was about to open fire on him, he turned to face him when there was a bellow from behind.

"OUTTA MY WAY! THIS GUY'S MINE!" Firestorm launched forward, surrounded by flames, and struck a surprised Nightshade with a burning uppercut that carried them both into the air. Firestorm immediately followed up with a fiery flying kick that drove Nightshade into the far wall. "You caught me off guard last time, but this time, I'm ready for you!"

"I hate to interrupt, Storm," Strike tapped his partner on the shoulder, "but we need to get out of here."

Firestorm scowled, turned, and launched a massive fireball from his hands into the dent in the wall where he had buried Nightshade, then turned back, offering only a sour, "Fine."

As he started away from the burning wall, however, he didn't notice that Nightshade had launched himself from the inferno, his broadsword held horizontally before him. Immediately, the team opened fire, both with the firearms they had been given by Smith and their native weapons, but the large blade of the sword easily blocked and diffused the shots. Just before the blade would have taken Firestorm's head off, however, he was very forcibly shoved out of the way. As a result, however, the blade still found a target, and cut deeply.

"SLATE!!!" Sharp shouted in horror.

Slate hadn't quite been cut in half, but it was pretty damn close. The blade of the broadsword had nearly cut all the way through his chest, and only a few inches of metal and stone remained to connect the two halves of the torso.

Nightshade looked at Slate, then at the rest of the team, who were stunned. As he went to pull out his sword, however, Slate reached down and grabbed it, holding it in place with one hand. In a rough gargle, his managed to shout, "G-g-go!" before firing a rocket directly into Nightshade's face. As Nightshade was thrown back, Slate released the blade, and it immediately flew from his body toward Nightshade. Slate began firing both rocket launchers at the gray robot. As he fired the last rounds, he turned and shouted, "GO!!!" one last time, before turning both laser cannons on Nightshade. Strike and Sharp immediately helped the wounded Dust and Kingfisher down the hall out onto the landing pad. Smith followed quickly, but not before patting Slate on the shoulder. "I'm sorry, old friend."

"J-just g-go…" Slate answered solemnly.

Only Firestorm and Blaze remained behind, watching as Slate kept both beams locked on Nightshade, who had formed his blade into a dome, and was crouched beneath it, pinned down.

"What the hell are you two waiting for?!" Smith shouted at them from the exit.

The two glanced at each other, then ran for the exit. Blaze was lagging behind slightly, however, because of her chest wound. As she reached the exit, she stumbled, grabbing the doorframe for support as she caught her breath. Suddenly, she heard Slate's attack interrupted by a short burst of laser fire. She turned, and saw that Nightshade had opened a tiny hole in his shield and fired a barrage from his gatling weapon. The beams were far stronger than the plasma bullets he had used before, and were able to pierce Slate's armor cleanly. The tortoise-reploid fell to the ground, dead.

Nightshade then turned toward Blaze with his gun drawn. Blaze immediately had her revolver up. There was a long pause. Neither of them fired: They both knew what would happen if one scored a killing shot on the other.

Blaze considered just turning and running, but if she did, that would give Nightshade a shot at the transport with that damn laser. She had to make sure she was onboard before he had a shot. Once she was aboard, the transport would be safe. But if she fired on him with the revolver, then any shot that disabled him would also cripple her.

Finally, Blaze pulled the trigger, targeting Nightshade's gun. He quickly sidestepped, but it threw off his aim long enough for Blaze to bring up her plasma shotgun, firing it one-handed. The cloud of plasma it fired struck Nightshade in the gut and threw him back into the wall, hard. Blaze immediately let out a voiceless cry of agony as the red lightning shot through her abdomen, but she was able to make a run for the transport without falling. It hurt like all hell, but a shot from her revolver would have been far worse. She simply collapsed in the doorway as the transport lifted off. As she looked back at the base, which was now a blazing inferno, she saw Nightshade shamble out onto the landing pad, gold electricity sparking through him. Their gazes met for moment, before Blaze gave him the finger with as much venom as she could.

* * *

And so, the team has made their escape from the Hunter Base (as the title implied they would). And 2 of the team have joined Omicron in the reploid afterlife (Cyberspace,according to The Megaman Zero series).

Until the next chapter, everyone.


	8. The Truth Emerges

Well, the team has lost its medic and its heavy infantry man, and Nightshade is still just as strong as ever. Things quite frankly aren't looking good for the Twenty-Worst.

Read, Review, and Enjoy, people.

**My Characters © Me**

**Capcom's Intellectual Property (since I've killed off every character that I borrowed from them) © Them

* * *

**

"You got a clear shot, Sharp?" Smith called from the controls of the transport.

"Oh yeah. Locked and loaded!" Sharp shouted back from the fire control console. He had all six of the transport's underside-mounted laser cannons trained directly on Nightshade. "Everyone, brace yourselves! These bastards have a mean kick!"

As the searing beams of energy lanced out from the cannons, the transport shook from the heavy recoil. As the beams struck the base, Blaze suddenly felt pain throbbing through her body. She choked back a whimper as the crimson electricity returned once again. She knew that Nightshade hadn't been directly hit, but the radiant energy had definitely done some damage to him.

"You okay, Commander?" asked Strike, who was the nearest to her.

"… I should've done something to save Slate. And Omicron. And Lifesaver."

"Omicron and Slate both sacrificed themselves so we could escape. I'm sure they wouldn't want you guilt-tripping yourself."

"… I guess you're right. But… I'm the Commanding Officer. I should be the first one to take the fall. But both times, I've been _tian di wu yohn_. And on my first day, no less."

"The rest of us haven't done any better, Commander, assuming you said what I think you said," Strike mused. "I was actually asking about your physical condition, though. That strange electricity keeps appearing, and it looks like it hurts."

"… Maybe I'm not as immune to that virus as I thought," Blaze lied, for what felt like the fiftieth time that day, "_Fang xin_. I'm not going to flip out."

"I'm not worried about that," Strike said plainly. He grinned softly, "Get some rest, Commander, we'll figure out something."

"… I hope so…" Blaze murmured. She hadn't realized how little she had recovered since the first encounter. Slumping back, she nodded off to the sound of the cannons firing again.

* * *

Nightshade lacked states of "consciousness" and "unconsciousness". Instead, they were independent of each other. Both functioned on the same "wavelength", and knew the same facts, but were able to focus on different functions. Thus, Nightshade had never left the mental construct woven between his mind and Blaze's. He simply performed his mental calculations and studies, his computational functions given a visual form.

"Hey…"

Nightshade suddenly sensed a surge of rage. He could tell Blaze was already on the attack, but did not defend himself. He doubted much harm could come to him here.

As Blaze's foot connected with his jaw, he suddenly felt otherwise.

The pain was all "in his head" as it were, but that didn't make it any less real. It had simply been generated directly in his neural systems. From the way Blaze cringed, he had a feeling that it had hurt her, as well.

"So, that's how it works in here?" Nightshade asked aloud, to nobody in particular. "I suppose we can fight each other here. It appears, however, that damage done here doesn't translate to our physical bodies, save for our diagnostic systems."

"I don't care."

That response surprised him, but he was still ready this time, as Blaze leapt into the air, somersaulting forward to drop her foot on the top of his head.

"I'm gonna make you pay for what you did to Slate. And Omicron. And Lifesaver."

Nightshade blocked, but did not counterattack. He saw several openings in Blaze's defenses, but knew that to take them would only hurt him as well, and he didn't need the false injury diagnostics distracting his "conscious" mind from dodging the laser cannons of the rapidly retreating transport.

"What are you trying to accomplish with this? You're hurting yourself, too."

" _Wuo jai jeong yi chi_, and pay attention this time: I. Don't. Care." Blaze was fighting recklessly, viciously. But her voice was cold as ice. Somewhat, Nightshade noted, like his own. He leaned back from a spinning hook kick, then stepped back again from the handstand axe kick that followed.

"You're wasting your time. I don't feel pain as you do. To me, it is, like everything else, just data."

That apparently struck a nerve. "_Ai ya_, _BI JWEH_, YOU_ GO NEONG YUNG DUH_!!!" Abandoning all of her martial arts skill, she tackled Nightshade to the ground, a move so random even he couldn't have predicted it. She grasped his throat with one hand, and squeezed. She tried to drive her other fist into his skull, but he was able to catch her hand in his own. They were in a stalemate for a moment, until Blaze released her hand from Nightshade's neck, her own neck no doubt in great pain from the pressure she was applying to his. She raised it up to throw another strike, but stopped, and then let her arm fall to her side. Nightshade released her other hand as he felt it go limp. Her anger was waning, replaced by a mixture of loss at her comrades' deaths and regret that she had been unable to save them. As Blaze sat there, still pinning Nightshade to the ground, she began sobbing quietly.

Suddenly, Nightshade felt something odd. The regret he was feeling was not quite the same as hers. The last time he had channeled her feelings, it had been her loneliness, an emotion with a very straightforward cause: being alone. It was alleviated by something similarly straightforward: companionship in some form. Now, however, rather than feeling her regret at allowing them to die, he felt…regret that he had killed them. But that didn't make sense. He had no emotions of his own. The only emotions he had were those that seeped into him from her. Could her emotions be adapting to his perspective and circumstances? Her regret was focused on her dead teammates, so perhaps when transferred to him, her regret remained focused on her companions, but from his point of view.

"… Blaze?" he asked, unsure of what he was about to do.

"WHAT?!" Blaze practically shouted at him.

"… I'm not quite sure why, but…I'm sorry…"

"… _Shuh muh_?" Blaze stared blankly at him, not understanding.

"… I'm sorry…for killing Omicron…" he paused, searching through his memories for the names he had heard them addressing each other with, "…Slate…and Lifesaver…"

"… _S…Shuh m-muh_?" Blaze still couldn't quite understand what he had just said.

Nightshade didn't quite understand either.

"You're…sorry?"

Nightshade nodded once. He felt her confusion, but confusion was one thing his mind could generate its own supply of.

Blaze stared at him, and slowly backed off, allowing him to rise. "… Are you really sorry…or are you just telling me that to shut me up?"

"Whatever you do to me affects you more. I have no incentive to lie." Nightshade was being completely honest. "… I don't understand why I feel remorse, or for that matter, how. You regret that you couldn't save your friends, but instead of feeling what you feel, I feel something different. Same emotion, but different feelings."

Nightshade suddenly realized he was having trouble determining Blaze's thoughts through her emotions. He felt all of her emotions, but they were reading as thoughts that couldn't have been hers.

Thankfully, she made her thoughts clear with a single question. "… You still won't stop, will you?"

"No. I'm sorry, but I can't stop."

"…" Blaze looked at him, her face slowly twisting with rage. She raised her fist to strike Nightshade.

Nightshade couldn't do anything but stare. The transport was now out of cannon range, and he had no reason to hold her off.

Blaze's fist quivered as her angry tears continued to flow. Instead of hitting him, however, she collapsed against his chest, sobbing pitifully, clinging to his shoulders.

"You… _huen dahn_!" Blaze cried hoarsely. "You've killed my men, and now you're apologizing, because my own remorse is leaking into you, and I can't bring myself to really, REALLY try to kill you, because I'm terrified that if I kill you, I'll die too!"

Nightshade could only stare at her, trying to sort out all of the emotions she was channeling into him. Finally, he realized what it was they were both feeling: despair.

"… I can't stop, Blaze," Nightshade tried to explain, "My directives are as ingrained into me as your fears are into you. No, more: you, at least, can overcome your fears in the right circumstances."

"_Wo de tian, a_… You don't have to explain! They're my emotions. I know EXACTLY how sincere you're being… And it makes me feel guilty for even hating you! But I HAVE to hate you! Otherwise, I'm condoning what you did to Omicron, Slate, and Lifesaver!" With that, she threw her arms around him and sobbed, occasionally murmuring curses in broken Mandarin.

Nightshade hated himself as he sat there in the almost crushing embrace of the sobbing hunter. He hated himself because he knew these feelings of compassion would leave him as soon as Blaze awoke, removing herself from the mental construct.

That, and the fact that he was using his crystal blade as a grappling hook, in conjunction with the one known as "Sharp's" active camouflage to climb up onto the transport. He hated himself for that, too.

* * *

"Hey, Commander? Wake up. And please don't shoot me."

Blaze woke up to Sharp gently shaking her shoulder, and quickly wiped the tears from her eyes. "… Sharp? Am I missing something? Are we about to die?"

"No. I just saw you crying, and thought you might be having another nightmare."

"I wasn't."

"Okay, cool," Sharp turned away, then glanced back at her. "Actually, there IS something I wanted to talk to you about."

"… Fire away."

" Well, first off, Commander, who's 'Nightshade'?"

"… How did you-?" Blaze felt her gut curl up and freeze solid.

"You were muttering in your sleep. I was able to pick out the word 'Nightshade' from what sounded like very, VERY bad Chinese."

"…" Blaze looked away nervously.

"Nightshade is the guy we're fighting, isn't he?" Sharp asked quietly.

"…"

"Commander, you can talk to me. I won't turn on you. I just need to know if there's something about him you aren't telling me, specifically, something that might help us stop him."

"… I don't know anything about him that you guys don't know."

"Bullshit, ma'am. You knew he was a robot and not a reploid before we did."

"…" Blaze tried to come up with a decent sounding lie, but as she began to speak, she knew it had taken too long to come up with. "Do you remember that data pad that I found just before Smith found Ursa's head? There was some very vague information about Nightshade in it."

There was a long pause.

"You aren't buying it, are you?"

"Not a word of it, Commander. You would have told us if you saw anything about a potential enemy."

"… Here's what happened. When Nightshade tried to infect me with…whatever he infected Omicron with, he…ended up mixing our neural systems."

"What?" Sharp raised an eyebrow.

"… The truth is, I'm apparently…partly built from nanobots like Nightshade, albeit just my power and neural systems. Somehow, part of him got in me, and part of me got into him. This ended up linking our minds, to an extent. When I get hurt, he feels it, and when he is damaged, it hurts me."

"Well, that explains a whole shit-load, Commander."

"Also, there's a link between our thoughts. We…share emotions: Whenever I'm asleep, or knocked out, my mind ends up in this construct between our brains, and whatever I'm feeling feeds into him."

"… That's…odd," Sharp remarked, before asking, "Have you learned anything that we could use against him?"

"…" Blaze looked at the floor. "No. But I do know what he's been programmed to do. The Mavericks programmed him to purify the planet. He's taken that to mean kill all sentient life on Earth, including reploids, Hunter and Maverick alike. I doubt that's what the Mavericks had in mind, so I'm guessing he's taken some liberty with the wording of his directives." As Blaze said these words, she realized exactly what was at stake, and a fresh batch of tears began welling up in her eyes, as she realized what not telling Sharp about the nature of the link might mean.

"… Commander?"

"… Because our neural systems are intertwined…death is the same for both of us," Blaze turned and looked at Sharp, her body beginning to quiver. "He's almost impervious to anything we could throw at him. The only way to kill him…" Blaze began to freeze, and nearly had to cough the last few words out, "…is to kill me." Blaze sighed heavily, then added, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you before. I…have some hang-ups about death."

Sharp stared at her for a moment, his mouth slightly agape, before he burst out laughing. "Well, fuck that, then! Jeez, did you think we'd actually DO that, Commander?!"

Blaze stared at him in disbelief, then after a moment, slowly grinned sheepishly.

"Do what?" Firestorm asked, having overheard Sharp's outburst.

"Nothing, Storm. Apparently, Blaze thinks the only way to stop this guy who's after us, whose name is Nightshade, by the way, is to kill HER. And she was afraid to tell us because she was scared we'd actually do it!" Sharp was at this point laughing hysterically.

"… And why aren't we going to?" Firestorm asked coldly.

Sharp's laughter immediately ceased. "Storm, what are you saying?"

"I'm saying that if the 'Commander' thinks that killing her is the only way to stop this guy, I say we do it." He turned to Blaze, and held up one hand, which began to burn with bright orange flames.

Immediately, everyone except for Blaze and Strike had some kind of weapon trained on Firestorm.

"Don't even THINK about it," Sharp growled threateningly, aiming his shoulder cannon at Firestorm's face, "That's treason you're talking about."

"You make any funny moves, Storm," Smith said warningly, one of his pistols at the back of Firestorm's head, "And you're as good as dead."

Dust hissed angrily, pointing one of his sabers at Firestorm's temple.

"Nobody is going to be killing the sack of hammers," Kingfisher spat, the razor edge of her wing at Firestorm's throat.

"Everyone, _joo koh_. Stand down." Blaze was surprised at how coldly she had given the order. She observed as everyone looked at her in shock, then turned back to Firestorm and slowly lowered their weapons. Only Firestorm himself continued to stare at her, hand still burning.

Suddenly, a hand appeared on Firestorm's shoulder. He was spun around into a two-left-fisted hook punch from Strike, flooring him instantly. Strike pointed his tail-blade at Firestorm's face, right between his eyes, and spoke with utter disdain.

"Storm, I've worked with you for a LONG time, and seen you do some VERY stupid shit. But NEVER did I think you'd stoop so low over a grudge! She beat you in a fair fight, which YOU picked, and now you want to kill her?! I should skewer you right here-"

"Strike, stand down. This isn't about any grudge between us," Blaze could hardly believe herself as she continued. She could only think of how much she sounded like Nightshade talking about his directives as she said, "We're Maverick Hunters. Our duty is to fight and destroy Mavericks any way we have to. And sometimes that means sacrifice."

Strike slowly looked from Blaze to Firestorm and back again. Finally, he retracted his tail. Firestorm rose slowly and turned to Blaze once again.

"Unless anyone has any better ideas," Blaze looked around, knowing that none would be offered, "…do it."

As Firestorm clenched his flaming hand into a fist, Blaze closed her eyes and bowed her head. As she waited for the strike to come, she couldn't help but tremble. The burst of mechanically cold logic was fading, and her fear was reasserting itself, though it was not even a fraction as strong as it by all rights should have been. "I just wish I cared as little about death as Nightshade, but I guess we're still separate individuals…" she murmured to herself.

"… No."

Blaze opened her eyes and looked up in confusion.

"I told you: I don't hit anyone when they're down, and you standing there, shaking like a near-dead leaf, is about as 'down' as my book goes."

"I'm giving you an order, Firestorm," Blaze tried to be authoritative, but all her muster had failed.

"You know what I think of your orders, 'Commander'."

"But-"

"'But' nothing. You want to die? You're gonna have to have someone else do it, or just do it yourself."

With that, Firestorm turned to Strike, folding his arms, "Still think I've stooped so low, Strike?"

"… Sorry about that. I shouldn't have doubted your honor code, Storm." Strike extended his hand.

"No problem buddy. You've had to keep me in line so often, even I had my doubts for a second." Firestorm reached out, grabbed Strike's hand, and pulled him into a quick one-armed hug with a slap on the back before stepping back. "Somehow, you still put up with me. I guess that's why we're partners."

Strike chuckled, "I suppose so."

The sound of the beam being fired was barely audible. The transport window being cracked, however, was distinctly more noticeable.

"G…g-guh…" Strike fell to his knees, a soup can-thick hole burnt through his chest, then collapsed face-first to the floor.

* * *

And then there were six…

As always, comments, criticisms, and other reviews are greatly appreciated.


	9. Warrior's Glory

Not much to say about this chapter really… so yeah.

By now, this probably sounding redundant, but Read, Review, and Enjoy.

**My Characters © Me**

**Mega Man X series © Capcom

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**

"STRIKE!" Firestorm shouted as his friend crumpled to the ground.

Nightshade was already diving through the broken window as everyone turned to see where the laser had come from. Everyone began to draw their weapons, but Blaze could see just from a glance that only Smith would get a shot off before that laser tore them to shreds.

So before Nightshade could fire, Blaze drew her katana and leapt at him. Nightshade's eyes widened slightly, and he released the trigger just before Blaze drove the blade into his chest. She immediately cried out in pain, but gritted her teeth. The blade glowed a magenta color, her anger and fear combining into a sense of desperation.

"EVERYONE, _KUAI QU HEN YUAN DE DI FANG_!" she shouted as red lightning began shooting through her body. Gold lightning was coursing through Nightshade, who, while he did not show pain on his face, was obviously stunned.

"What about you, Commander?!" Sharp shouted back.

"He…won't…kill…me…" Blaze hissed out painfully, before shouting, "GO! _MA SHONG_!!!"

Sharp nodded, and began directing the team toward the transport's hanger, where the Ride Chasers were being held. Dust quickly hopped onto his Adion, along with Kingfisher, who was still too weak to fly. Sharp lifted Strike into the hover-car beside Smith, and then turned to call, "Hey, Firestorm! You think you can hold onto the roof?" Sharp waited for a moment, but there was no answer, "… Dammit." Sharp considered for a moment, then turned to Smith. "Get us out of here."

"On it." With that, the hover car launched out of the hanger down to the frigid water below, hovering just above the surface.

Sharp looked back at the transport, and hoped that Blaze had been right. He then checked the horizon and pointed toward a cluster of ice flows. "Over there." Sharp then picked up the radio. "Dust, can you hear me?"

A single hiss answered.

"We're taking cover in the ice flows to the west."

Dust hissed again, then the radio went quiet. Sharp sighed then turned to look at Strike, who was in bad shape. He wasn't quite dead, but without any proper tools, he wasn't long for this world.

"This guy's officially too much for us," Smith muttered. "Sharp, you think we should call in reinforcements?"

"… No."

"What? Are you crazy?" Smith stared at Sharp in disbelief.

"The Commander told me what this Nightshade guy is after: He's programmed to kill every sentient being on the planet. If we call in reinforcements, he may be able to hijack a transport and bring it into a populated area." Sharp sighed and slumped back in his seat. "We have to kill him here. On our own."

"… How much of a chance do you think we have?" Smith asked.

"… You don't want to know what I think our chances are, Smith."

* * *

"You'll pass out before this shuts me down, Blaze," Nightshade said in his matter of fact voice, though it broke and garbled several times.

"_Chiu se_!"

"I'm not likely to die anytime soon. If you're trying to stop me from following your team, your current plan is probably going to give me plenty of time to lose you: I won't kill you, but if you shut down, then I'm free to follow them."

"_Choo fay wuh suh leh_, you will! Just _gwon ni tze duh shr_ for a change, instead of worrying about ME!" Blaze shouted, twisting the blade and immediately feeling it in her own chest, which was still damaged.

Nightshade tilted his head slightly, then reached out and grabbed the blade of the katana, his fingers curling around the back side and avoiding the cutting edge, and pulled it out slowly. Blaze cursed, realizing Nightshade's brute strength far outstripped hers. She leapt back, drawing her sword into a cover stance. Nightshade drew his sword, forming it into a saber. Blaze leapt forward, thrusting repeatedly, but Nightshade parried away each strike. Blaze suddenly switched to an overhead strike, forcing Nightshade to step back. Digging her blade into the ground, Blaze flipped over it, somersaulting with an axe kick. Ignoring the pain in the top of her head as the kick connected, she repeated the move, then backflipped, driving her left instep into Nightshade's chin, then her right heel into his throat. As she completed her backflip, she landed, stumbling from the pain in her windpipe, and launched forward with several slashes. Nightshade recovered before they connected, however, and locked his blade with hers, stopping the assault cold.

Out of the corner of her eye, Blaze noticed an orange spark, and then Nightshade was pummeled by a solid ball of fire, smashing him into the controls of the transport. As the transport began to rise sharply, Firestorm stepped forward, smoke pouring from both his palms.

"That one was for Strike, you bastard."

Blaze was shocked. Of all of the Hunters in the Twenty-First, Firestorm was the last one she'd expect to come to her aid. Refusing to kill her was one thing. But HELPING her? That was something else.

"What are you doing here?! I told you guys to get out!"

"And you're surprised I disobeyed an order like that?" Firestorm cocked one eyebrow and grinned.

"… Not really, now that you put it that way." Blaze returned the grin, then turned back towards Nightshade. "You ready to kick some_ pi gu_?"

"As if you need to ask!"

The two charged at Nightshade, who barely deflected the dual strike. As Firestorm drove the charge into Nightshade's defenses with a crossing thrust kick, Blaze ducked low, and swept both of Nightshade's feet out from under him, spinning around to drop both heels on the downed Nightshade's stomach. Nightshade, however, caught both of her legs and swung her into Firestorm. Firestorm dodged, however, caught Blaze's wrist, and swung her around, allowing her to kick the rising Nightshade in the jaw. Nightshade immediately swiped with his saber, forcing the two to separate. He then charged at Firestorm, who was without a weapon. Firestorm attempted to block the strike with his gauntlets, but the blade was able to dig into the alloy, though not nearly as cleanly as it could through normal armor.

"Damn!" Firestorm hissed, reflexively withdrawing.

Seeing his opening, Nightshade thrust his blade forward, but was forced to stop when Blaze leapt in front of him. Because she had been coming from behind, she couldn't get an effective defense up without slowing herself down too much to stop the strike from piercing Firestorm. Nightshade had put a great deal of force behind the strike, and barely managed to redirect his energy, giving Blaze a cut from the bridge of her nose down to beneath her eye and nearly throwing himself over.

Blaze froze for a moment, realizing she wasn't dead. She caught her breath before driving the pommel of her sword into Nightshade's nose, and following with an upward diagonal slash that cut into Nightshade's torso. As she followed up, however, Nightshade thrust his blade at her. Blaze began to parry, but the blade suddenly spread out into a solid plate that quickly enveloped Blaze in a blood red crystal cage. Nightshade then hurled the ensnared Blaze into the wall of the transport. Blaze struck the crystal several times with her sword, fists, feet, and even shot it a few times, all to no avail, and was forced to watch as Firestorm took Nightshade on alone.

Thankfully, Nightshade had given up his sword to remove Blaze from the fight, and at such close range, his gun was useless against a hand-to-hand fighter as skilled as Firestorm. That didn't stop him from trying, however. Nightshade released his gun from his wrist, and took aim. Firestorm swept his left hand across the back of Nightshade's hand as he brought his right hand up into the bottom of Nightshade's wrist in a Tiger's Mouth strike. The combined blows sent Nightshade's gun flying from his hand.

"Shoryuken!" Firestorm bellowed as he performed a burning uppercut, with far more power than usual. They both flew into the air, Nightshade smashing into the roof. As he fell, Firestorm unleashed another Fireball, accompanied by a shout of, "Hadouken!"

Nightshade was launched back by the attack, and landed heavily on his knees. His attempts to rise seemed to be impaired by the damage caused.

"Normally, I don't hit my opponents when they're down," Firestorm chuckled, "But in your case, I'll make an exception!" he shouted as he charged.

Blaze, however, could tell that Nightshade was bluffing. She was in only minimal pain from Firestorm's attacks. "Storm! It's a trap!"

The echo within the crystal blade immediately assaulted her ears. The thing was completely solid, and no sound would escape. Then she saw what Nightshade was waiting with: his right hand was turning black, the way it had when he had killed Omicron and attempted to kill her.

"_Lao tien fu_…"

Blaze did the only thing she could think of.

Raising her sword, she drove it into her own chest, piercing through both her main neural cord and her power generator. Instantly, red electricity was dancing across her entire body. The pain was almost unbearable, but she couldn't help but grin as she saw Nightshade freeze, then collapse to the ground, then look at her in what could only have been utter disbelief. Firestorm was staring at her too, his disbelief just as great. With a quick nod, Blaze gestured towards Nightshade, who was utterly immobilized by the gold surge of power coursing through his entire being. With a mighty kick, Firestorm smashed Nightshade up into the ceiling, and then through it, sending him through the roof of the transport. The blade slowly retracted into its handle, releasing Blaze, who slumped to the ground in pain. Firestorm immediately rushed over to her, and pulled the sword from her chest.

"Hey! HEY! You all right?!" Firestorm shook her, trying to get some response.

Blaze coughed, but didn't speak. She had just killed herself, and she knew it.

… But then, why wasn't she dead? Then, she felt a strange sensation in her spine. She was suddenly AWARE of the nanites as they reassembled themselves, closing the wound and restoring her functions. Then she felt the same sensation in her chest as her power generator closed the wound her sword had left.

And suddenly, she knew why Ursa hadn't been able to kill her permanently back in her father's lab, so long ago.

"… Didn't work…" she murmured, rising to her knees.

"What didn't work?" Firestorm asked.

"I don't think we'll ever know if killing me would kill Nightshade…"

"Why not?"

"… I just impaled myself, critically damaging both my neural and power systems." Blaze rose to her feet. "I'm perfectly fine, besides the fact that that hurt like _go se_."

"… I'm still amazed you actually did that," Firestorm whistled in amazement.

"Yeah, well…" Blaze sighed, "I had to do SOMETHING. He was about to infect you with the virus that killed Omicron."

"… Thanks."

"Hey…that's what the Commanding Officer's supposed to do. Now, let's get back up there and finish this."

"… Commander," Firestorm said with a salute. It was the first time he had used her rank without disdain or sarcasm. "With all due respect, I think you should regroup with the rest of the Unit."

Blaze was about to argue, when Firestorm held up a hand to silence her.

"They need you, ma'am. Right now, we're in a fight we can't win. I'll hold him off as long as I can. But if he escapes, then he'll hunt down the rest of the team, and I think you're the only one who can stop him if he finds them."

As he finished, Firestorm's entire body began to glow like molten magma, and an aura of fire began to burn around him. He raised himself up through the hole in the ceiling, offering one final bow as he did so.

Blaze returned it, then turned to the hanger, stumbled through the door, and mounted the Molotov, ready to burst into tears. But she wouldn't allow herself to cry. Not over the soon-to-be memory of the one Hunter who would hate being cried over more than any other.

* * *

Nightshade felt different as he rose from near death. He had always detected damage when he or Blaze was injured, but he had never "felt pain".

And now that he had, he could safely say that it sucked.

Was Blaze all right? That was, surprisingly, the next thing he wondered. The fact that he had survived meant there was a good chance she too had survived, but she had impaled herself. Had she really been ready to die for the sake of killing him? Obviously, she had, but had she succeeded in the first part of that plan?

No… She was alive, he could feel it. Nightshade breathed a sigh of relief.

Wait… Relief?

Nightshade wasn't actively connected to her: she was still conscious. So how were her emotions feeding into him? And why was his conscious mind experiencing them?

… Perhaps it was because both he and Blaze had nearly died. His diagnostics had warned him that a total system failure was imminent. That had proven to be false, but if their subconscious minds were shared…

And then he remembered… as he was lying there, paralyzed, he had suddenly experienced everything from both his and Blaze's perspective… For a moment, he had BEEN Blaze…

So did that mean that these emotions…were his own?

Nightshade's internal musing was interrupted by a massive heat signature rising from within the transport. The Hunter known as "Firestorm" rose from the hole in the craft's hull, surrounded by flames and glowing like he was made of magma. As he landed, the fiery aura burst like a bubble, throwing bits of molten metal and small flames everywhere, lighting up the cold night sky of the Arctic. The transport was still ascending inexorably, its controls stuck in a terminal rise.

"I guess it's just you and me now, Nightshade."

"I see Blaze told you my name."

"She told us that, and other things. None of which are important right now," Firestorm declared as he charged up, heat emanating from his entire body.

"You think you're the first heat elemental I've killed?" Nightshade asked, almost arrogantly, "My creator was a fire elemental, and I killed him with minimal effort. So unless you have some VERY fancy tricks that you haven't used yet, I doubt you're a threat to me."

"I know I'm going to lose this fight," Firestorm shrugged, "but before I die, you'll know my name, and fear that I might come back from the grave!" With that, he lunged at Nightshade, renewing his assault with incredible fury.

Nightshade was unsure why he chose not to call his blade back, as it would have made the fight far shorter, since the blade could cut into the dense metal of the gauntlets and boots Firestorm wore, and defending against the blows was more difficult because of that same armor. But as they traded blows, Nightshade had to respect Firestorm's skills. They must have been honed over many years of training.

It was such a shame that the warrior would have to be killed.

Nightshade quickly scanned the gauntlets and boots, his own gauntlets and boots reconfiguring themselves to match the alloy's properties. Then he drew up all of his strength into a single straight punch that badly dented Firestorm's gauntlet as he blocked and sent him flying to the opposite end of the transport. They had now risen above the clouds, and the transport was approaching its flight ceiling.

Nightshade began preparing himself for Firestorm's next strike, but saw that the hunter was charging in place, his boots driven into the hull of the transport. Firestorm then opened his mouth.

Instead of a shout, however, a massive beam of fire shot from his mouth like dragon's breath. Nightshade had analyzed his opponent well before the fight had begun, and there were no systems that could generate this much power, let alone through his mere breathing. Nightshade immediately drew upon his power generator, and began expelling raw plasma from his palms, forcing the beam of fire back. The two continued to combat their energies against each other, neither able to gain any ground.

Suddenly, the transport shuddered as it hit its flight ceiling, and the antigravity generators suddenly had very little gravity to repel. Firestorm's balance was knocked off, as was the path of his fire beam, and Nightshade's crimson plasma wave struck him squarely in the chest, shorting out all but a few of his systems. He collapsed to the ground slowly, sparks of red electricity shooting across his body every so often.

"H-ha… S-so…" Firestorm choked, his voice failing, "T-this i-is t-the p-pain B-blaze f-felt…"

"Yes. And the same pain I feel when she is hurt," Nightshade added.

"S-she'll k-kill y-you, y-ya k-know… D-do y-you h-hear m-me, f-fucker?"

"I hear you," Nightshade said as he held up his palm, firing another blast of plasma at Firestorm, "Now ask if I believe you."

But Firestorm didn't die. Instead, he stood, and began to draw all of his energy, including the energy Nightshade had pumped him with, into his index finger, which he held over his head. The transport's hull suddenly began to heat up, to the point where the metal seemed to be boiling, balls of molten metal rising from the surface.

"Watch closely, Nightshade…" Firestorm grinned, "You say I need a fancy trick? Here you go, then. One last trick… One last skill from my master… and one last gift from my Team… The trick to end all tricks…"

Firestorm pointed his finger down at the ground, and suddenly, the floating balls of molten metal were shooting straight downward into the superheated transport, creating small geysers of molten metal. Nightshade was pinned down before he could dodge, but quickly saw that there would be no way to dodge. Then, he saw that the balls of molten metal were shooting through the hull, tearing the transport apart.

"SEE YOU IN HELL, ASSHOLE!!!" Firestorm shouted, the overcharge beginning to rupture his power core. Combined with the energy he had absorbed from Nightshade's plasma, and the explosive force of the transport, the final explosion put the destruction of the Maverick lab to shame.

* * *

Blaze stopped the Molotov as she saw the month-long night turn into day for a brief few moments. She turned to look at the destruction of the transport. The explosion had consumed it. And in that moment, she knew Firestorm was dead.

"Hello?" came Sharp's voice over the radio.

"… I'm here…"

"… Firestorm?"

"… Dead…"

"… To the West, you should see a dense pack of ice flows. That's where we've taken cover."

"… I'll see you there…"

Blaze turned to face the west, but decided to take off towards the North, to try and lure Nightshade away. As she rode across the water, Blaze felt numb. In less than twenty-four hours, she had lost four soldiers, and had a sickening feeling that the bloodbath wasn't over.

* * *

So now the infamously asshole-like Firestorm has made the ultimate sacrifice for a noble cause. And now The 21st is down to 6 members, half of whom aren't of much use in combat.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter.


	10. The Key to Victory

I got a ridiculous case of writers block doing this chapter, but I think it came out all right.

So, now that we're finally into double digits, Blaze is about to learn that her greatest ally in her mission to destroy the terror that is Nightshade... may actually be Nightshade himself.

Read, Review, and Enjoy.

**My Characters are mine.**

**Capcom's Stuff is theirs.

* * *

**

Nightshade didn't know how long he had fallen for. It was quite a distance, but his body combined great mass with little air resistance, so he should have reached terminal velocity quickly. Yet the fall seemed to last an eternity.

He reflected on his bout with Firestorm. Specifically, he focused on the hunter's death. While the explosion had been of impressive power, in the end, it had done little to the gunmetal robot. Yet at the same time, it had done a great deal. Nightshade recalled feeling guilt over his destruction of the other hunters when Blaze had broken down before him, but this was different. He was actually disturbed by what he had done. He felt what could only be described as an urge to vomit. This made no sense, as he lacked even the simulated stomach of a reploid. Yet Firestorm's death made him ill when he thought about it. It didn't help that when he reflected on his own words, he realized that he had sounded like a sadistic jackass.

This was unexpected. Had acquiring emotional capacity weakened his constitution?

No. His emotional spectrum was copied from Blaze, and she was perfectly capable of killing.

As Nightshade thought about it, he realized the obvious answer: Ask Blaze. But this would be difficult, as she was not unconscious, and so their connection was broken on that front. At almost the exact moment his body crashed into the frigid ocean waters, he realized he was going to have to seek Blaze out and speak to her in person. But what if she had caught up with her comrades? Could he resist the compulsion to kill them? He doubted it. Despite his newfound emotional objections, his directives were still guiding his every move.

A moderate amount of time had passed between the team's departure and Blaze's, so there was a small chance he could find her before she found her team. Nightshade swam to the surface of the water, and then, after rummaging through the files he had downloaded through the data pad at the lab, found the design specs of the hover device and engine of an Adion Ride Chaser. He made the appropriate alterations to his own propulsion system, allowing him to sustain a dash indefinitely, and hovering above the water.

His scanners couldn't find any trace of Blaze, and his own emotions were clouding his ability to sense hers. He felt a faint feeling of sadness, but under the circumstances, it could have easily been his own, and he couldn't sense it distinctly enough to pin a direction to it.

"Let's see... There's obvious cover to the West and East, and said cover is closer on the West side." Even as he said these words, he felt a compulsive urge to investigate them for signs of life. "No. Blaze is a higher priority. If I'm going to be so affected every time I kill, then I need to find her before continuing with my mission." The urge lessened as he justified his decision to himself. "And there's almost no chance they had enough fuel to make it anywhere South of here, so… North, then."

He immediately took off towards the Northern horizon.

* * *

Blaze knew that Nightshade hadn't experienced significant pain in the explosion, and her own continued breathing made his death unlikely at best: while there was now some doubt that their deaths would be mutual, it still seemed the most likely scenario. It would just take something far more extraordinary than expected to bring this about.

Suddenly, Blaze felt mildly dizzy. There was a feeling of nausea, but after a moment, she realized it wasn't in her stomach, but in her head. The feeling was also distant, as if…

… It wasn't her who was sick.

Slowing the Molotov to a stop, she turned and looked back at where the transport had exploded. "… Nightshade…"

Blaze couldn't help but sympathize somewhat with Nightshade. He was simply acting on what was essentially an instinct put into words. He derived no pleasure from combat. He was just unnaturally good at it.

Finally, she saw a disturbance in the surface of water far away on the horizon, and saw that something was rapidly approaching her. It was far enough away that her sensors weren't detecting anything, but she knew instantly that it was Nightshade. Almost as soon as she saw him, she felt a strange sense of relief, with the same distant quality as the illness.

Her curiosity overriding her common sense, Blaze decided to wait for him.

She didn't have to wait long. With speed that rivaled the Molotov's, Nightshade quickly crossed the distance between them. As he approached, he slowed down, hovering in front of her.

There was a tense moment of silence before Nightshade broke the silence with an almost-nervous-sounding, "… Hi."

"… Hi," was all Blaze could answer with. Physically seeing him triggered the anger she felt toward him, but she was able to suppress it, at least physically. "… What do you want?"

"… I'm not sure… To talk, I suppose," Nightshade's answer bore little of his normal mechanical certainty.

"About what? About how you've killed half of my team?" Blaze had tried to sound bitter, but as she looked at him, she couldn't bring herself to say it as coldly as she'd meant to.

"… What did you do the first time you took a life?"

The question had come from seemingly out of nowhere. Blaze was surprised for a moment, but finally answered. "At first, I didn't do anything… I reported back to my Commander that the enemy had been neutralized, finished the rest of the mission, and returned to base. Then at dinner, I suddenly felt violently ill, and vomited in a manner that could only be described as 'epic'. I was brought the medical ward, and spent the rest of the night there so they could make sure nothing was wrong with me."

Nightshade took an apparent interest in this, leaning in to listen more carefully. "WAS there anything wrong with you?"

"… I spent the entire night sobbing and I think once I even called out for my dad. I almost got sick again, and only kept it down by convincing myself there was nothing for me to throw up."

"… Was this all because you took a life? Or were there extenuating circumstances?"

"… It happened on the day Sigma went Maverick. He infected one of my teammates, and she went _feng le_, causing chaos in the city. I pleaded with her to listen, but she was gone. She was incoherent, just randomly causing destruction, shouting things in a distorted voice. But just for an instant before I shot her, she looked at me, and there was some recognition. Then it was gone, she lunged at me, and I shot her right between her eyes. Like I said, I didn't feel anything wrong when I did it. I just felt lightheaded, like I was dreaming, but by the time I contacted my Commander, it had worn off." Blaze finished her story, then turned to Nightshade. "Why are you asking me this?"

"… I don't know. I guess I'm trying to make small talk." Nightshade immediately looked away, quite obviously avoiding eye contact.

"… _Cai bu shi_, Nightshade. Why do you REALLY want to know?"

"…" He simply turned further away, remaining silent.

"Is it because you're feeling… sick, by any chance?" Blaze asked softly, but made sure to include just a hint of accusation in her voice, slowly nudging the Molotov closer so that she was leaning over Nightshade's shoulder.

"… I… Yes, I am feeling ill…" Nightshade nodded, heaving a sigh.

Gently, but cautiously, Blaze reached out and grasped his shoulder, turning him around. Nightshade offered no resistance, and Blaze immediately saw why.

Nightshade had tears flowing from his eyes.

This time Blaze was the one with an inexplicable urge: Reaching out, she wrapped her arms around Nightshade's shoulders, pulling him close, holding him the same way he had held her when they first "met". Resting her chin on his shoulder, she whispered, "I didn't think you knew how to cry…"

Slowly, hesitantly, Nightshade reached up and clung to her waist, his hands quivering. "… I DIDN'T…until I copied your tear ducts," he answered, voice was still a monotone, but Blaze could swear that it was beginning to crack, "a few seconds ago, when I realized I needed them…very, very badly…"

As she heard this, Blaze couldn't help but tighten her embrace just slightly, and even rocked him back and forth just slightly. It was actually kind of funny, in a depressing sort of way: Nightshade was actually holding them up with his hovering, as Blaze was leaning far past the balance point of the Molotov, and yet it felt as though SHE was holding HIM up.

"… Did you have any special feelings for Firestorm that you didn't have for Omicron or Slate?"

"I didn't feel the same way about him as I did about them, but only because up until five minutes before his death, he had never been anything but a complete ass to me."

"… That couldn't be it, then…"

"What couldn't be it?"

"… I'm trying to figure out why I'm reacting differently to Firestorm's death than I am to the others'."

"… Did I miss something?"

"…Perhaps you didn't receive the same sensation, but when you nearly killed us by stabbing yourself, I think…I think, for just an instant…we became one in the same, and some of your characteristics copied into me."

"Sorry, but I can't say I felt that. All I felt was a lot of pain."

"… Must be the way my mind is oriented around data."

"If you say so." Blaze considered for a moment, then asked, "What do you think transferred over?"

"… Emotions. Weak emotions, but emotions nonetheless. And not the emotions that feed from you into me. I feel things on my own now. And the first of these things is a feeling of disgust from killing Firestorm…"

"… You've just experienced your first kill…" Blaze whispered, pushing him back just slightly so she could look him in the eyes.

"But I've killed twenty-three times before this… So why am I reacting so differently now?" Nightshade asked, almost sounding like he was pleading with her.

"Because…" Blaze said, trying to give Nightshade a good answer and lamenting her lack of psychological expertise, "you didn't actually experience those deaths. Even when you apologized to me for killing my teammates, you didn't feel their deaths, you just felt ME feeling their deaths. And only my regret made it through. This time… you have a full range of emotions that are all producing different reactions to your actions."

"… The first kill was hard on you?"

"… People say that the first kill is always the hardest. Which in a way could be true. My first kill was definitely the hardest on me after the fact, but I think it was actually easier to go through with, because I had no idea how much I'd suffer. But because the first hurt so much, the SECOND kill was the hardest for me to work up the nerve for."

"… Even though your first kill was a friend?"

Deciding not to correct him about the relationship between her former partner, Blaze answered, "Yes. Even though my first kill was a friend, and my second kill was a complete dick who had burned down a hospital, it was harder to chop his head off than it was to shoot my friend in the face…" Blaze sighed as she recalled both events, sitting back on the Molotov, sliding her hands from Nightshade's shoulders down to his own hands. "But after I had killed him, I realized that I didn't feel that bad it since he was such a _huen dahn_. And eventually, even killing virus-controlled allies became easier. Killing personal…friends is still harder on me, but I can go through with it without too much hesitation, and I… occasionally kind of enjoy killing the real bad guys."

"…"

"… You know, when I'm not having one of my lovely little nervous breakdowns."

"… So…killing will become easier for my conscience to handle…the more I do it?" Nightshade asked with a combination of suppressed horror and incredulity, dropping into a "sitting" position, still hovering above the water.

"Probably," Blaze sighed, gliding her thumbs over the backs of Nightshade's hands.

"… That thought… disturbs me…" Nightshade murmured, "… It feels like it should be… WRONG… to get used to taking the lives of others…"

"It is, Nightshade… But that's our nature…" Blaze turned from him to look at the moon, then asked, "… Did these new emotions come with relief from your compulsion to kill all sentient life?"

"… No… I wouldn't have killed Firestorm if they had…" Nightshade suddenly laughed humorlessly.

It was a strange thing to hear.

"The funny part is, this is the first kill I didn't directly cause. I beat him, and the wounds were probably critical, but I don't know for sure. Once he started breathing fire, seemingly without any mechanical means to do so, I threw out all my preconceived notions about what he was capable of." Nightshade's chuckling faded as he turned to Blaze, "He killed himself… with one big attack that I'm sure was meant to kill me."

"So he caused that big explosion?" Blaze asked.

"He WAS that big explosion…" Nightshade answered.

Blaze laughed morbidly. "… That… sounds like how he would have wanted to go…"

"I guess so… I never knew him that well, but he fought with honor."

"Yeah…" Blaze paused, recalling how Firestorm had spared her life even though it could have rendered Nightshade harmless if it he had succeeded in killing her. "But you can't stop, can you?"

Nightshade shook his head. "My programming is still controlling my actions, even if my feelings are against it. Even now…" Nightshade turned and looked despairingly into Blaze's eyes, "I'm still getting a strong urge to kill you… Which up until now was held in check because, during earlier encounters, I logically determined that if I killed you, then it would kill me, which would result in a failure of my mission."

Blaze simply looked at him.

"Now, my logic's been overridden by my emotions, but my directives are the still the alpha and omega of my actions. And since my mission program doesn't account for the possibility that a particular attempt to fulfill my mission could actually cause me to fail it, there's nothing stopping me from acting on this urge, except…"

"… Except…what?" Blaze asked quietly.

"… Except…I think that if I kill you…I'd have to take my own life after, even if your death didn't trigger mine…and I'd probably just justify it to my programming by telling myself that I've become sentient, and then go through with it before I have a chance to refute it."

"… I'm gonna be honest…Nightshade, it's my duty to kill you before you hurt anyone else, but…you're really making this hard for me."

"… Well… I was designed to be indestructible, Blaze."

Blaze shook her head. "As big a factor as that is… That's not what I meant…"

"… I know. I was just…trying to avoid mentioning it."

"As much as I hate the things you've done, both to my team and to me…I actually don't hate you…"

"You know… Hearing that…actually makes me…happy." Nightshade gave Blaze a small smile.

Another long moment of silence passed between the two. This time, however, the silence wasn't tense, but was instead, amazingly, something resembling "warm and fuzzy". Blaze realized, with less astonishment than she would have expected, that it was the same feeling she had gotten when Nightshade had hugged her during their first meeting in the mental construct.

"Blaze…" Nightshade finally broke the silence.

"Yeah?"

"… I know how you can become strong enough to stop me…"

"_Shuh muh_?!"

"… Your power systems and neural network are of the same design as mine."

"Yeah…?"

"… The nanites have the ability to convert simple matter into more nanites. It's how I've been able to modify my structure in ways that increase my mass."

"So you're saying I can do the same thing?"

"Yes. Normally, you would need the system to already be made out of nanites to do this, but the neural nanites are special. Because they extend into EVERY system, they are capable of creating nanites to replace any that are damaged or destroyed. Therefore, you could recreate your entire body this way."

"Except that my brain can't control the nanites the way yours can."

"Yes you can. Your mind is probably operating at too high a level to sense it. But if you think about it, that's how you recovered from the wound Ursa gave you, and the wound you gave yourself. Your desire to live subconsciously triggered the repairs." Nightshade was growing more excited by the second.

Blaze, however, still had her doubts. "Okay, so I can subconsciously force nanites back together. But even if I figured out how to control my nanites on that level, I wouldn't have any idea on what to make them create. And if I had them consume something and create the wrong thing, it might kill me."

"Which would probably kill me anyway."

"… Why are you telling me this?"

"… I've decided…that I don't want to kill any more," Nightshade sighed, looking up at the sky, "But I'm going to continue unless someone kills me. Thus far, nobody has had the power to destroy me. But you have the potential to gain the power necessary."

"… Nightshade," Blaze interrupted him, "… Why don't you just kill me?"

"…"

"I didn't have the ability to kill myself. But if your own power could kill you, then you could easily kill me, which would be a much easier than me killing you, even if I somehow managed to gain power equal to yours."

"… It isn't an absolute certainty that your death would kill me. And if you die, and it DOESN'T work, then there'd be nobody left to stop me."

"Well, even if I gain the power needed to kill you, how the _guai_ am I supposed to do it?"

"… I don't know… I just…" Nightshade looked down at the water, before blurting, "I just don't want to hurt you, okay?!"

"… But if I kill you, then that will still probably kill me too, right?"

"… But there's a chance that it won't…"

Blaze thought for a long time about this, weighing all the possibilities. Finally, she said, "Okay, Nightshade. I'm game."

"… Thank you, Blaze," He grinned, almost bowing to her. "Now, the only problem is that you probably aren't designed to scan and internalize new or superior technology or components."

"… Okay… So, how exactly do I do it?"

"… I can't show you…but I can transfer some nanites directly from my brain into yours."

Blaze immediately leaned back. "_Chwee ni duh! _I don't care if this turns me into god: you are NOT stabbing me again! Seriously, I-"

Blaze was silenced when Nightshade floated forward, grasped her shoulders, and kissed her softly. Blaze froze, unable to comprehend what was going on. She suddenly felt lightheaded, began wobbling precariously, and would have fallen if Nightshade hadn't been holding her up. Slowly, however, she regained her senses, and realized that she was enjoying this. Her lips began to tingle, and that feeling spread across her face to the base of her skull, then into her spine, before fading.

Before she could begin to return the kiss, however, Nightshade broke it off, floating back a few inches from her. "That should, uh…"

"_Shi_…" Blaze answered, remembering what the kiss was meant for.

As Blaze stared blankly at him, she suddenly realized that his face had turned a slightly darker shade of gray. "Nightshade, are you…blushing?"

"… Probably?" Nightshade shrugged, obviously flustered that she had noticed.

"… Why did you-?"

"I don't know… I just…wanted to…" Nightshade mumbled, before asking, "What would cause me to-"

"You're asking the wrong girl…" Blaze answered, "'Pathological distrust of all sentient life', remember? Your guess is as good as mine."

As Blaze's embarrassment wore off, she noticed that her diagnostics had detected a "foreign program", which had failed to set of any red flags.

"… Did it work?"

"As nearly as I can tell, _shi_."

"Okay. That's…good news," Nightshade smiled sadly, "Blaze…there's just one thing I want you to do for me…"

"What?"

"Kill me… Before I kill anyone else…"

"But-"

"Please, Blaze…"

"… Okay…I'll stop you from killing again… I _shi yan_…"

"Thank you…

"But Nightshade…you're resisting killing me… Why can't you resist killing entirely?"

"… I…I'm not connected to anyone quite the same way I am to you…" Nightshade answered, with some hesitation. Before Blaze could say anything else, he added "… I probably should go. Your team is waiting for you, and the last thing we need is for you to lead me straight to them."

"I- Right…" Blaze turned to start up the Molotov, then turned back to Nightshade, who was preparing to fly off in the opposite direction. "Hey, Nightshade?"

"Yeah?"

"I, uh…" Blaze stopped, unable to figure out what she was trying to say, before giving up on words, reaching out and grabbing Nightshade's hands, and nervously pulling him into another brief kiss before releasing him. This time it was Nightshade who froze, unable to understand why Blaze had kissed him after he had already transferred his programming into her, before he finally decided he didn't care why.

"_Sheh sheh_…" was all Blaze was able to force out through her obvious embarrassment, as evidenced by her beet-red face.

"… I wonder who should be thanking whom…" he whispered, then turned to leave.

As she heard Nightshade rocketing away, Blaze turned, kick-started the Molotov, then flew off across the frozen waters, deciding to gradually adjust her course eastward and leave a false trail for several miles. She wasn't thinking much about her route, however. Instead, she was wondering why she felt so…at ease around Nightshade. It sort of made sense when they were sharing a mental construct, where he was simply a being of logic, seemingly incapable of any kind of malicious, or even unmalicious, aggression, even in the eyes of someone as paranoid as her. But even then, she was merely comfortable enough to vocalize her rage at him for the acts he committed in the physical world.

Now, suddenly, she was outright HAPPY near him, even in person, when he was arguably at his most dangerous. He had even ADMITTED that, because of his new emotions, he had to restrain the urge to kill her, and yet she hadn't even been CAUTIOUS around him. If he had lost control, she would have been utterly helpless, and she hadn't cared in the slightest.

Finally, unable to come up with any explanation that didn't fly in the face of everything that she was, she simply shook her head, and decided that she had drawn her course out long enough. Turning westward, she kept heading slightly north of the ice floes, drawing a long arc towards them.

"This is utterly _feng le_," she mumbled to herself.

* * *

Wow… I actually managed to get through a chapter without killing someone off. Let's see how Long THAT lasts (though, technically, I haven't killed Strike off.)

As always, I thank you for your reviews.


	11. The Beginning of The End

This chapter's kind of... Well, let's just say it isn't my favorite. It kinda goes all over the place.

I seriously need to start doing my writing BEFORE midnight. Maybe then I'd be able to keep track of my own bloody story.

Anyways, as always, R, R, and E. (If you've read this far, you probably know what that means.)

**My stuff is mine.**

**Capcom's is theirs.

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**

"Dammit… Where is she?" Sharp growled under his breath.

"You think she's lost?" Kingfisher mumbled, her voice still slightly raspy.

"No, Fisher. I think Nightshade may have caught up with her."

"Maybe, but didn't she say Nightshade wouldn't kill her?"

"Good point."

Dust interrupted with a series of hisses. His quickly scratched a shorthand message into the ice wall of the cavern with his claws.

Sharp read aloud, "True, but Nightshade obviously doesn't mind killing US." As he said this, Sharp noticed Dust looking at Strike, who was still out cold, and barely clinging to life. Sighing, he continued, "Maybe she drew him away from us." Sharp looked at Dust with a weak smile, "Yeah Dust, I was thinking the same thing, though I doubt that she could keep a fight up very long if everything she does to him comes back to her, and that's not even counting his own attacks."

"But doesn't he get hurt by anything he does to her?" Kingfisher asked, "Isn't that WHY he wouldn't kill her?"

"Right, but the Commander is somewhat more fragile than most, to say nothing of Nightshade being almost as tenacious as Sigma himself. I mean, you saw what happened on the transport, right? She impaled Nightshade, and looked more hurt by it than he did."

"Not to mention the fact that she's still wounded from the first encounter, and may have been damaged further after we left," Smith added.

"Yeah. Let's face it, the odds are heavily stacked against her," Sharp concluded, "and by extension, us."

Kingfisher could only mumble, "That's not good, then, because I think she would have done it anyway."

"I would have if he'd actually followed me."

The remnants of The Twenty-Worst turned, and saw Blaze leaning on the side of the cavern's opening.

"Commander!" Sharp practically shouted, saluting.

"Everyone here?" Blaze immediately asked.

"All accounted for, ma'am."

"How's Strike?"

"He's-"

"Pretty much done for…" came a weak reply. Everyone turned to see Strike awake, eyes opened, though he couldn't sit up. "It's good to know you're safe, Commander."

"… Yeah… Look, Strike, there's something I need to tell you…" Blaze had spent the better part of the trip coming up with the right way to tell Strike his partner was dead.

Strike simply chuckled. "I already know… He's gone, right?"

"How did you-?"

"We're partners. Warriors. We have a bond, Commander. Like you and Nightshade, but less literal. And with… Well, I'm not sure if we beat each other up more than you and Nightshade, or less." Strike laughed weakly again. "I'm compelled to ask, though… Did he, as Storm would put it, 'die like a punk'?"

Blaze smiled softly. "… _Fei hua_."

"… I didn't understand that word…but I know exactly what you said… I shouldn't have doubted that he'd die a warrior's death…" Strike's voice began trailing off, "That's all I needed to hear, Commander… Thanks…" Strike's eyes suddenly lost focus, and his breath left him in one slow exhale.

"…Strike? Strike?" Blaze gently shook him, but to no avail.

The warrior scorpion had joined his hotheaded partner in death.

The team was somber after Strike's death, but by that point they all had mentally prepared themselves for it. There was even a bit of amazement he had lasted that long with such a wound.

Blaze ruefully noted that half the of team was now dead.

At that moment, her resolve to keep her promise to Nightshade doubled.

Silently, she began to meditate, activating the program that Nightshade had transferred into her mind. As she viewed her own schematics, she saw that her neural system was responding, rewriting the schematics. At first glance, the design remained the same. Each gear, circuit, and wire was duplicated as a collective of nanites.

All that remained was for Blaze to try it out. Blaze had a feeling that this would hurt, since her body was, in essence, eating itself, and using the raw matter to rebuild itself.

As such, it seemed fairly reasonable to give the team a heads up.

"Guys, if I start screaming in pain, just find some way to keep me quiet."

"Sure- Wait, WHAT?!" Sharp stared at her in utter disbelief.

"… I'm about to restructure my entire body."

"… Okay then, Commander… At this point, I'm trying not to be surprised by anything."

Blaze cleared her head of everything but her reworked designs, and began to implement them. In her mental image of the schematics, she checked off in green every part she had successfully converted. As expected, it hurt like hell. But it wasn't a sharp pain. Instead it was simply an extremely nasty ache that seemed to spread outward from her spine. Slowly, she switched into sleep mode.

* * *

Sharp was close to dozing off himself. It had been close to twenty-four hours since his last recharge, and he was beginning to feel sleep poking him in the back and giggling like a very annoying toddler.

That his mind plucked that particular metaphor out of his repetoire was only further proof of his sleep deprivation. Still, as he looked at the team, he knew they needed sleep as much or more than he did. Dust and Fisher were both wounded, and hadn't exactly gotten the most complete of treatments before the only real source of medical expertise had been vaporized. Smith, who had the most experience with field medicine given how frequently he went on solo missions, had done what he could with them, but he was no Lifesaver.

Speaking of Smith, he too had been working overtime to fill the gap. He was holding up better than Sharp, since the former 0 Special Ops Hunter had had to endure such conditions before, but even he showed signs of strain. The heavily-armed hunter was fiddling with one of his guns, taking and adding parts from the rest of his arsenal, creating a long rifle that looked almost like a bazooka, but bigger. Several large, blocky protrusions on the weapon implied a host of hidden devices. Smith set the weapon down for a moment, and took out a carrot, munching on it slowly before picking the weapon back up.

And then there was Commander Blaze, who looked like her skin was being eaten of by a wave of pale silver. The way she kept whimpering in pain was somewhat disconcerting.

When Sharp had first seen the physical transformation beginning to physically manifest itself, he had almost disrupted it out of panic that she was somehow being consumed by Nightshade. Smith had managed to warn him not to before he did. Good thing, too, since disrupting the transformation could have resulted in Blaze's death by leaving her with two halves of, say, a circulatory pump that didn't fit together.

Sharp still had to give this new ability some serious thought, however. Where exactly had the Commander learned how to do this? If she could have done it before, she would have. Obviously, it was a nanobot-based technology, which meant that it came from her creator, or "Dad", as she referred to him.

Sharp suddenly wondered whether he would consider his creator his "parent" if he hadn't been built off of an assembly line. Probably.

Back on the subject at hand, though, Dr. Setsura had been dead for years, and all of his computers had been found wiped. The only remaining copies of his research were the ones that had been stolen by the Mavericks, and THOSE copies had likely been destroyed by Nightshade at the lab. But that meant the only way she could have gotten this ability was…from Nightshade…

Had Blaze turned traitor? Sharp didn't think it was possible. Perhaps she had gleaned it via the link between their minds. Or, since Nightshade seemed adept at mimicking technology simply from sight, perhaps Blaze had learned to do the same.

With that, Sharp determined that he had done enough thinking, and that it was time to catch some Zs. "Hey Smith," he called, "Wake me up in two hours. Unless you want to sleep first, in which case, by all means."

"I'll take first watch. My senses are still sharp. No pun intended." Smith paused for a second, before adding, "You know what pisses me off? People who say 'no pun intended' when the pun was COMPLETELY intentional: I mean, it's bad enough you said something that stupid out loud, but don't lie to me-"

"Yeah, you're definitely more on the ball than I am, Smith. 'Night."

* * *

Sharp knew when Smith woke him that it hadn't been anywhere NEAR two hours.

"What is it?"

"It's him. He's close by," Smith whispered

"What?! How did he find us?" Sharp had to force himself not to shout.

"He didn't… yet. If he had, we would be dead. But I doubt that he's not capable of detecting us if he gets close enough."

"Oh for fuck's sake, can't that guy give it a rest for TWO FUCKING HOURS?!" Sharp snarled, still keeping his voice down.

"Apparently not."

Sharp growled something so unintelligible even he himself didn't know what he had said, if anything.

"This guy's starting to piss me off, too. Not that I didn't already hate him for killing our friends, but now he's added 'annoying' to the list of things I think he is."

"How far?"

"A kilometer. Maybe less. I guess he realized the only place that would provide suitable cover was this group of icebergs."

"… No…" Sharp murmured as he turned to look at Blaze, who was roughly halfway done with her modifications. "… I think he's attuned to her presence." Sharp turned back to Smith, "Okay. I've got this crazy theory on how Blaze got her new powers. Since this is definitely the result of Dr. Setsura's research, and the only existing copy, if one exists, and it HAS to, is in Nightshade's memory banks. So…"

"You're thinking that Nightshade might have actually infected her after all?"

"No. I think that their connection had done more than just allow them to communicate, and make any physical pain a mutual experience. I think they've scrambled their personalities, as well. I mean, haven't you noticed how…'confident' the Commander has gotten since the incident? When I first met her, she was shivering like a leaf from a nightmare she'd had."

"She still seems pretty timid to me, but I'll take your word for it," Smith mumbled, "So, you think he can sense where she is?"

"More or less, yeah."

"Wonderful. So, what's the plan?"

"… We buy Blaze some time. You and I are still in decent shape, and Dust can ride his Chaser. Fisher's got the worst injuries, so she can stay here and watch the Commander."

"Sounds good to me," Kingfisher coughed from the corner of the cavern, "You guys have fun fighting the walking apocalypse out there."

"Thank you for the vote of confidence, Fisher…" Sharp sighed sarcastically. "Dust, you up to fighting?"

Dust nodded fiercely, drawing one of his sabers.

"Smith, you in?"

Smith just raised one eyebrow, as he grabbed the bulky gun he'd been modifying.

"Okay then, people, let's move out." Sharp immediately, walked over to the parked hover-car and hopped into the passenger's seat.

"You're driving, Sharp. I want to test this sucker out," Smith said as he shoved Sharp over behind the controls.

"What is it, anyway?"

"It's a little project I've been working on. Only as a kind of hobby, though, since I wasn't ever planning on seeing combat again before Nightshade dropped in on us. But I want to see if it's effective against him."

"What makes you think it'll work?"

"Nightshade has proven more of less invulnerable against kinetic attacks. And he also seemed to resist to heat energy, if Firestorm's failed flame attacks are any indicator. But Nightshade is based on the old "Devil" type robots, and those things were almost universally vulnerable to electromagnetism. So I modified the beam slightly so that it'll electrocute whatever it hits, in addition to doing physical damage."

"And what if that doesn't work?"

"… Well, it'll be fun to shoot," Smith grinned, pulling out another carrot from his armored coat, "You focus on not getting us blown up. I'll worry about shooting him."

"Sounds good." Sharp stepped on the accelerator, sending the car flying out of the cavern onto the surface of the water. Dust's dessert-colored Adion followed suit, Dust waving one of his swords as if he were rallying troops for battle.

* * *

Nightshade sensed them immediately: the energy emissions of the vehicles were far easier to detect than the signals of the hunters themselves.

The fact that they had mounted up meant that they were either running for it, or they were planning on one last ditch assault. Nightshade silently hoped that Blaze was among them, ready to keep him in check. He knew this was futile, however, since Blaze's energy signature was still too low for combat.

They were attempting to sneak up on him, using the icebergs as cover. It might have worked had Nightshade not possessed as capable a sensor system as he did.

"I…don't want to fight…" Nightshade murmured to himself as he raised his gun, trying to fight the urge to take the easy shot that was being presented to him. Altering his gun from a plasma weapon to a laser weapon had made the ice almost useless as a barrier against him.

Blaze had promised to kill him before he could hurt anyone else. But unless the hunters fought with far greater success than in the past, she was about to involuntarily break her promise. Nightshade didn't bear her any grudge, though. He could feel that her energy slowly growing, meaning she was still in the process of transforming.

"And she's so sensitive to pain… I hope she deduced that the transformation would be unpleasant at best…" Nightshade whispered to himself, astonished at how much he sounded like an overprotective parent, "I should have warned her…"

He wasn't even looking as he pulled the trigger, letting a hail of laser beams sear through the ice, musing that he had probably asked the impossible of her.

As he detected the explosion of one of the vehicles, he mused sadly, "She's going to blame herself for this… Blaze…I'm sorry…"

Then he detected a sudden, intense energy signature. It was too intense to be the emission of an individual, which meant…

Nightshade barely dodged the large blue beam as it cut through the ice with the same ease his own shots had. The beam actually managed to graze his leg as he floated up.

Suddenly, pain shot through his entire body, the way it had whenever Blaze was hurt or injured. As he looked at himself trying to determine the source, he saw blue bolts of electricity shooting up and down his body.

He was so distracted by the combination of pain and surprise that the next blast struck him dead-on. He was actually sent tumbling into the water by the intensity of the blast. Whoever had built that weapon had gotten creative, and it had paid off. Nightshade couldn't help but grin as he rose back above the water's surface. Perhaps the hunters could hold him off until Blaze was finished.

"Dust! Are you okay?!" Sharp shouted.

The answer came from above. Sharp looked up to see Dust clinging to the roof of the hover-car. Dust hissed, grinning widely.

Sharp couldn't help but laugh. "God damn, man! Don't ever scare me like that again!"

"ICEBERG!" Smith shouted.

"Oh, SHIT! Sorry!" Sharp turned his attention back to the vehicle he was driving. Tilting the stick sharply, he swerved the car away from the wall of ice.

"Oh, yeah. THAT got his attention," Smith chuckled, looking through the enhanced scope of the cannon.

"You hit him?"

"Dead center. Must have been effective the first time, since that shot was a just a glancing blow. But he didn't even try to dodge the second one."

"Is he down?"

"Yeah. Not out, but definitely down."

"Okay, I'm charging him head on!" Sharp shouted as he slammed on the accelerator.

Smith fired another blast from his cannon, but Nightshade was ready this time, and spun out of the way, returning fire with his laser gatling. Sharp swerved side to side to avoid fire, but stayed straight enough that Smith could continue firing. Then Smith reached up to a second handle, and depressed another trigger. A targeting laser reached out, "painting" Nightshade as a target. Out of the blocky protrusions on the cannon, several racks of missiles extended, and the explosives launched en-masse through the broken windshield.

Nightshade swooped high to avoid the missiles, but realized all too late that they were tracking his movements. He switched his focus from the hunters to the missiles, firing a rain of laser beams at them. He destroyed most with relative ease, but the electromagnetic pulses they released upon detonation stunned him, allowing the last missiles to strike him head on, followed by another blast from the cannon.

"Holy shit, Smith. You even modified the missiles? You were really banking on Nightshade being vulnerable to electricity, weren't you?"

"It worked, didn't it?"

"Good point."

Smith fired another blast from the cannon, striking Nightshade again. Nightshade fell crashing into the nearest iceberg, where he lay, sparking.

"Pull up close. This thing can probably only handle one more shot before it overheats. I'd like to make it count."

Sharp hesitantly complied, pulling the car up to the weakened Nightshade.

"Say goodbye…" Smith muttered under his breath as he took aim.

But as Sharp looked at Nightshade, who was grinning weakly, he realized there was still one loose end.

"Wait…" Sharp said, holding up a hand, then called out to Nightshade, "Nightshade… You taught Blaze how to become like you, right?"

Nightshade looked surprised for a moment, then laughed weakly, "Yeah… I did…"

"… Why?"

"… I wanted her to kill me…before I hurt anybody else…" Nightshade's grin faded as he rose to his feet. "You should have just let him shoot me… Because as much as my mind wants to die…"

Suddenly, Sharp was soaring through the air, pain tearing through his entire body. He was flying back so hard that he skipped across the water several times, crashing into another iceberg.

As he looked up, he saw red lightning crackling through Nightshade's palm.

Nightshade sighed as he finished, "My body isn't so willing to give up…"

* * *

So, Nightshade's losing control of himself, Blaze is still transforming, and the team's in deep shit.

It's coming down to the wire...

As if it needs to be said aloud at this point, but I appreciate all the reviews, comments, and (constructive) criticisms you guys offer.

Also, yes, I DID base Smith's gun off of Kraft's "Spartan Laser" from Zero 4. (Seriously, it IS a Spartan Laser.)


	12. The Destroyer Rises Again

I like this chapter, if for no other reason than I finally pulled a plot-device out of my as that could not be predicted, but isn't a complete wall-banger.

Read, Review, Enjoy.

**My Stuff is Mine.**

**Capcom's is Theirs.

* * *

**

Kingfisher was watching Blaze intently. So intently, in fact, that she didn't even notice when Blaze stirred from her slumber.

"… Fisher, what are you staring at?"

"You, Commander. You're…" Kingfisher struggled as she searched for the appropriate word, "…really fucking shiny."

Blaze rose slowly, looking at herself. Her armor was an almost-white silver color. Grasping a few strands of her hair, she saw that it too bore a brilliant metallic sheen. Slowly, she walked over to the edge of the water, and looked at her reflection, seeing that her skin had acquired the same color as well. The patches and streaks of red and orange had been turned shock white. Only her eyes were unchanged, though even they seemed to glow a brighter amber color than before. Blaze noted that her damaged left eye had been repaired, and now matched the golden glow of the right.

All in all, though, she didn't FEEL any different. Her diagnostic computers registered the same speed, strength, and reaction times that she had possessed before the transformation. She noticed, however, that her armor was no longer separate from her body, but was instead bonded to it. The same was true of her revolver and her katana's hilt and scabbard.

"Feeling alright, Commander?"

"… _Shi_. I don't feel any stronger, but I feel-"

Blaze stopped as she looked at Kingfisher. The new program in her head had activated, and was automatically analyzing every single one of Kingfisher's systems and body structures. Suddenly, Blaze felt a strange sensation in her back. The back of her armor was extending a pair of thin frames. The frames were then filled by a gold mass of the same strange nanite structure that formed Nightshade's sword, shaping itself into golden "feathers". Blaze, without consciously trying, had developed wings very similar to Kingfisher's.

"_Jahn_…" Blaze murmured, looking at the wings in marvel.

"… Holy shit, Commander…" Kingfisher stared in equal awe, before laughing.

"_Shuh muh_?"

"You look like some kind of angel, Commander."

"… We'll see, if I can live up to that, won't we?" Blaze sighed, heading toward the entrance to the cave.

"Take care, sack of hammers…"

"Don't talk like I won't be back, Fisher," Blaze said casting a small grin back at her.

"Ha! Sorry 'bout that." Kingfisher laughed.

As Blaze reached the mouth of the cave, she looked back at the Molotov, and instantly, her mind began absorbing and adapting the thrusters and anti-gravity generator designs, her boots growing to fit the new components.

Hovering into the air, she activated her modified dash thrusters, tearing off across the ice-cold water. She immediately sensed Nightshade to the North. As she approached, she suddenly felt a slight shock of pain. It didn't hurt as much as it used to, though, and the pain faded faster than it could grow by cycling between her and Nightshade. She felt another shock, and then saw a large storm of red plasma and an explosion.

"Oh, _go se_…" Blaze's wings began to emit a wake of energy as she willed herself to move faster.

Finally in range, she saw Nightshade standing over Sharp, preparing to blast him with red lightning. Sharp was stunned by the plasma blast, as were Dust and Smith. Reversing her direction, Blaze flew feet-first into Nightshade from the side, sending him bouncing along the ice. Blaze landed softly, her wings suddenly melting away, as if on cue.

"Commander!" Sharp gasped heavily.

"_Wai_, Sharp." Blaze was immediately studying him, analyzing his armor and weapons. Nothing too different from her own equipment, though the precision buster cannon on his shoulder did yield a moderate power boost to her revolver, and the stealth armor he wore could be extrapolated on to give her armor color-changing properties. She'd have to make the alterations later, though.

Turning back toward Nightshade, she grinned and gave him a small wave. "_Ni hao_, Nightshade?"

Smiling lightly, he waved back. "Honestly? I've been better, Blaze." His body suddenly lurched forward, obviously trying to lunge at Blaze, held back only by Nightshade's sheer force of will.

"You can let go now, Nightshade," Blaze said softly, "I'm ready to put an end to this."

He charged, drawing his sword as a katana and swiping. Blaze drew her own sword, locking blades with Nightshade, taking a quick moment to analyze him. She would need time to sort through the data, but she did have time to note, with some curiosity, the two power lines running down his arms.

Nightshade pushed her back, placing his hand on the back of his own blade and shoving. He attacked with a low sweep, but Blaze stepped back out of its range and came down overhead with a slash of her own. Nightshade continued his spin, bringing the blade up with an angled guard. Blaze's downward swing slipped right off the blade, but as Nightshade turned his wrist to strike her from behind, Blaze brought her sword up behind her back to block. Twisting out of it, never breaking contact between their blades, she threw a hook kick into his gut that knocked him off balance. As she attempted to strike this opening, however, Nightshade used his backward momentum to backflip out of the way of her blade, and then thrust forward as he landed. Blaze quickly turned her wrist upward, sending the stab above her head. Drawing her revolver, she quickly emptied all six shots in a single burst. The blast was far more powerful than it had been the last time she had used it, and Nightshade was sent flying up into the air.

Nightshade never fell, however, and stopped himself at the peak of his flight. The full-cylinder shot had done very little to him.

"Commander!" Sharp suddenly shouted, "His systems are damaged by electrical attacks!"

Never taking her eyes off Nightshade, Blaze responded, "_Jing chai_! Except I don't HAVE any electrical weapons!"

"Hey, Commander! Catch!" Smith shouted, tossing the heavy cannon her way.

Blaze analyzed the weapon. While obviously cobbled together from various other weapons, it seemed no less effective for it, and she suspected that this was the weapon that had caused Nightshade the damage she had felt him take earlier.

Before she could finish analyzing it, however, the gun was struck, mere inches from her hand, by a bolt of red plasma, causing all of its internal circuits to fail.

Blaze looked up to see Nightshade, his palm extended toward the gun. He then turned his palm to her, preparing to unleash another strike from the deadly plasma emitter.

Karma was not on her side today. Blaze quickly held up her katana in her left hand, pointing it at Nightshade as the crimson bolt shot toward her. The blade began to diffuse the energy, but several of the small forks of the electric blast lanced out to shock her painfully. Then Blaze realized where the electric shocks were coming from: The power lines in Nightshade's arms suddenly didn't seem so pointless.

Focusing, Blaze felt a numbness spreading down her arm as a line extended from her own power core to her right palm. Gathering up her strength, Blaze extended her right palm, emitting a blast of gold plasma, pushing back the crimson lightning as she quickly created a power line in her left arm. As she began unleashing gold lightning from both arms, however, the force behind Nightshade's blast intensified.

This was bad. Even if they had similar abilities, there was a good chance that Nightshade had a stronger power generator than she did. She needed an advantage. The beams were too large for her to fire her gun around, but…

… Maybe her katana could go through.

Grabbing her sword with her left hand, she hurled it into the cloud of electricity. It flew straight, diffusing a path through the storm of energy. Blaze couldn't tell what had actually happened, but she knew she'd managed to at least land a glancing blow on Nightshade, as his blast suddenly dissipated, allowing hers to cut through and strike him squarely in the chest. The high-intensity blast immediately began to damage Nightshade's internal systems, and Blaze felt an incredibly painful shock run through her own body. Still, she pressed the attack until she thought her nerves would explode, and then swung her fist out, swinging Nightshade into the ground and releasing the tether of energy. Even after he hit the ground, however, Blaze could feel the electricity continuing to course through his body, jumping from nanite to nanite.

"_Wo cao_, aren't I? I'm…" Blaze murmured, falling onto the ice, "…going to die…"

Suddenly, she felt no pain at all. All she felt was the cold ice beneath her. She looked up, slightly disoriented, and saw only a plume of smoke rising from where she had thrown Nightshade.

"… Is it over?"

Then, inside the plume of smoke, she saw a crackle of red electricity.

"… _Wuh de ma_…"

Nightshade was floating over the ground, his eyes glowing red. But there was no life in them. They were as cold as they had been the first time the 21st had encountered him.

* * *

"My name is Nightshade."

That was the first thought that went through Nightshade's head. He slowly observed his surroundings, and what he saw seemed extremely…odd.

He was currently standing on a large iceberg. Numerous signs of unnatural damage to the surface indicated combat. And apparently, he was one of the participants. He scanned his entire CPU, but found no records or memories that could explain how he came to be in this place. All that was there was a short list of directives:

1: Become the perfect combat machine.

This was, by its very nature, impossible. Nightshade would of course do everything he could to advance closer to it, but completion of this directive was impossible. Several design aspects of his body and weapons were obviously alterations from the originals, but Nightshade had no recollection of making them, or having them made. He made a note to move this directive to the bottom of the list once he had reviewed it in full.

2: Destroy Megaman X and Zero.

He had no idea who either of these beings was. But it was irrelevant, since the directive was merely part of the third.

3: Purify the planet.

Nightshade couldn't understand why his programmer had phrased this directive so ambiguously, but it was irrelevant. Since it required interpretation, Nightshade applied simple logic, and determined that the only element currently on the planet that nature couldn't compensate for was sentient life. It was a simple conclusion: All sentient life had to be destroyed.

Nightshade stared across the iceberg, looking at a small silver humanoid machine. His sensors detected that she was remarkably similar to him in physical build, bearing the same nanite design. She was weaker than he was, however, and bore signs of damage from battle. She was staring back at him with confusion and a hint of fear on her face. She suddenly drew a small handgun and fired. Nightshade was caught off-guard by both the power of the shot and the speed with which she had taken aim. He was still, however, fast enough to leap into the air, leaving ghost trails in his wake. As the blast hit the ice, he realized that it had not been a single shot, but six shots fired in rapid sequence. He was surprised that she could pull the trigger so quickly, with such precise timing, without any disruption to her aim.

He landed on the ice directly in front of her, the force of his landing driving up a cloud of crushed ice. He reached through the ice cloud, and grasped the girl by the throat, pulling her face-to-face with him. She struggled for a moment, tugging on his wrist, but then her grip went slack as she looked into his eyes.

The fear was gone, and only the despair remained. Nightshade attributed it to her realization that her defeat was inevitable, until she spoke.

"… Nightshade…?"

The way she said his name was strange, beyond the inexplicable fact that she already knew his name. The way she said it was neither fearful nor hateful, but was instead simply confused. Nightshade couldn't rationalize it, but as he drew his hand back, and charged it with crackling red plasma, he determined that it was irrelevant. She was about to die anyway.

From the right, three sets of orange saber waves slashed through the air, cutting into Nightshade's body in several places. A barrage of plasma blasts followed this assault. The attack only fazed Nightshade enough to cause him to release the silver humanoid from his grasp. He hadn't been forced to, by any means, but her will to fight had obviously been broken by something, and as such, she was, for the moment, threat-neutral. Activating the overdrive module, one of many systems he was certain he hadn't been designed with, he dashed at the first of his attackers, an android in the shape of an anthropomorphic lizard. Nightshade drew his blade, forming it into a scimitar, and cut through both of the lizard's beam sabers and then through his neck. The lizard gave a confused hiss as his headless body fell to its knees, then flat onto the ice. Turning his attention to the other humanoid, who wore an armored coat and was brandishing a large automatic rifle, Nightshade formed his sword into a shield which diffused all of the android's shots as he charged forward, then, at point-blank range, extended the shield into a long-sword, which he plunged into the barrel of the rifle, piecing through it and into the attacker's shoulder. Drawing his own gun, Nightshade quickly fired a long burst of crimson lasers into him, from his abdomen through his chest and up to his face.

Another blast struck him from behind, and he turned to see another humanoid, this one with armor that bore a strange iridescence, firing a shoulder-mounted cannon at him. As he was about to open fire on him, the android suddenly disappeared, his armor apparently possessing some sort of cloaking device. Since Nightshade couldn't detect him thermally, either, he amended his assessment to read "cloaking devices" in the plural. As the next blast was fired, however, Nightshade's quick reaction time allowed him to fire a shot at the attacker before the cannon blast hit. The android was immediately knocked out of stealth mode when he was struck, but he had managed to dodge slightly out of the way, avoiding a lethal strike. He was injured, though, and was, therefore, a sitting duck.

Before he could deliver the finishing blow, however, he was struck from the side by a compressed buster wave. Nightshade quickly determined that the attack had come from the silver humanoid he had left behind only seconds earlier. Leaping to his feet, he opened fire as the silver humanoid flew up to the stealth fighter on a pair of crystal wings that seemed to be made of a material strikingly similar to his own sword. Just as the shots reached their target, the silver being folded her wings around both herself and the stealth fighter, using the crystalline "feathers" to diffuse the laser blasts.

Suddenly, the silver robot flared her wings open, hurling her spike-like crystal feathers at him, forcing Nightshade to form his blade into a dome shield, as the feathers were too numerous to block with any standard sword, and any attempts to shoot them down with an energy weapon would have been useless. From behind his shield, he watched as the silver one shot away with the stealth fighter in tow, appearing to vanish into thin air.

Obviously, Nightshade concluded, the silver droid had copied the stealth fighter's cloaking systems. As they flew further away, however, he realized that he could still sense a trace energy signature which roughly corresponded to their location. It was almost as if there was some small part of him traveling with them. Nightshade wondered briefly how that could have occurred, if that was in fact the case, but couldn't come up with a feasible explanation.

* * *

Sharp had barely been able to perceive what happened after Blaze had grabbed his wrist. Now that they were flying somewhat level, he was able to fully comprehend what had happened. Still, he was somewhat disoriented from being carried by the cloaked Blaze. He was used to operating while cloaked, but physically interacting with another cloaked entity was an unsettling experience.

Blaze had flown back toward the cavern they had been hiding out in, sliced through the wall with her sword, grabbed Kingfisher, and had continued flying as far from Nightshade as possible, all while still cloaked.

"Commander, where are we going?" Sharp finally called out.

"…" Blaze's only response was to deactivate her cloak, which Sharp took as his cue to do the same.

"… Commander?" Sharp was about to try and get her attention, when he felt a small drop of liquid strike his cheek and immediately begin to freeze.

Looking carefully at the little of Blaze's face that he could see from his angle, he could see a stream of tears running from the Commander's eyes.

At that point, Sharp decided that it would be best to just shut up for now.

Kingfisher, apparently, didn't share the same sentiments.

"Does someone want to tell me what the FUCK is going on?!"

"… Fisher, Dust and Smith are dead…"

"… WHAT?!"

"You heard me, Fisher. They. Are. Dead."

"… What are you saying, Sharp?" Kingfisher asked hesitantly, "It's just the three of us, now?"

"Yeah… Just the three of us…" Sharp sighed ruefully.

Kingfisher stared, as if refusing to believe what she was hearing.

Sharp looked at Blaze again, murmuring, "It's the three of us…versus Nightshade…"

* * *

So, the link has finally been severed.

All reviews, comments, and criticisms of a constructive nature are appreciated.


	13. Finding The Will

Something that came to mind as I was writing this chapter. Have I properly justified Blaze's seemingly never-ending depression well enough for it to not qualify as "wangst"? You be the judge, good readers.

And then tell me, because I'm curious to know.

Same goes for "Sue-ism" (for Blaze. I'm fully aware that Nightshade is god-modder incarnate).

In any event, I finally got this chapter the way I wanted it. Hopefully you'll like it, too.

Read (of course), Review (You'll have my eternal gratitude), and Enjoy (Redundant: See Above).

**My Characters, Pseudo-Sciences, Etc. © Me.**

**Mega Man X Series © Capcom.

* * *

**

Blaze knew Sharp was trying to tell her something, but she couldn't hear him.

In fact, though, she could hear him. She simply couldn't find the mental strength to comprehend what he said.

That actually wasn't true either. She had more than enough strength to simply filter words through her auditory processors.

She just wasn't listening.

She sat on the iceberg's surface, her amber-gold eyes staring at the ice. She didn't even twitch. She felt like sobbing, but couldn't even muster up the strength to cry. So her tear ducts simply remained open, allowing her tears to simply flow out.

All she could think about was how Nightshade was, in essence, dead. He was still up and walking around, but that just made it worse. She had erased everything that he had become since his activation, leaving only the killing machine he had been built as. And she had failed to keep her promise to him.

It shouldn't have been that hard. She hadn't made him stronger by wiping out his personality and memory, yet once the damage had been done, she could only watch as he took, not one, but TWO more lives.

So she had, in essence, killed three people in the span of five minutes. The fact that she had saved two more meant very little when compared to that, and she couldn't even explain to herself why it didn't.

And, of course, she had done it by breaking down. She had managed to beat Nightshade, even though he had stopped holding himself back, but something about seeing him with those empty eyes again… It had broken her will somehow. But why? Killing Nightshade had been the plan all along, and obviously, nothing had been holding her back until that point.

And then she remembered the kiss he had given her. Not just THAT he had kissed her, but HOW he had kissed her. And the blushing… And forcing himself not to hurt her… And the "connection" that allowed him to protect her alone from his compulsive wrath.

"… _Lao tien fu_…" Blaze murmured. Nightshade hadn't meant the connection between their minds…

He had been in love with her.

"_Zhen dao mei_…" Blaze heaved a sigh. Had she known? Was that why she had felt so paralyzed? Or was it just shock? Over the one day they had been connected-

Blaze half-heartedly noted that it had now been exactly twenty-four hours since their first encounter at the lab.

-she had become accustomed to Nightshade's presence in her mind. Yet now, she felt nothing. No feelings were filtering into her brain, nor could she even detect his location. Perhaps the emptiness had simply come as a shock to her system. She couldn't think of any other reason that she would have fallen apart the way she had.

Wondering briefly if they even still shared pain, Blaze drew her katana, and slowly dragged the blade across the back of her wrist. Even though she had applied almost no force to the weapon, the unnaturally sharp blade still sliced deeply through her silver skin and into her flesh, nearly severing her hand. It was incredibly painful, but Blaze simply didn't care enough to scream. As she dropped her sword by her side, she watched as the wound slowly closed itself. There was no crimson electricity surrounding the wound, nor did the pain intensify from any feedback loop between her mind and Nightshade's.

Blaze smiled grimly, at least on the inside. When she had destroyed Nightshade, she had also destroyed whatever part of her had become a part of him as well. Maybe that was why she felt so dead inside.

"It isn't over yet, Blaze…"

Blaze blinked, for the first time in what felt like decades. That voice… had been Nightshade's. She listened for a moment, but heard nothing. Inwardly, she sighed. Hearing voices was usually a sign of insanity. In reploids, it usually implied a system defect, since reploids couldn't simply go insane.

"But then, you've considered yourself messed up ever since Ursa killed you."

What was Nightshade's point in telling her what she already knew?

"I'm not telling you anything. Or rather 'Nightshade' isn't telling you anything. You're only hearing his voice."

Fantastic. Not only was she hearing voices, but the voices were unnecessarily cryptic.

"I sound like Nightshade because you need me to."

Why did she need the voice to sound like Nightshade?

"You're on your own for that one. I can't tell you anything you don't already know."

As the voice finished, Blaze's mind traced back to the second kiss she had shared with Nightshade. The one SHE had given HIM.

And then it was perfectly clear: Blaze had been in love with Nightshade, too. In spite of everything he had done, both before and after they had established a link, she had fallen in love with him.

"So, that's one mystery down."

And what were the other mysteries?

"Well, for starters, why aren't you afraid of the dark anymore?"

Blaze was suddenly very aware of how dark it was, even for a full moon. She prepared for a panic attack, but realized that there was none forthcoming.

"Now why might you not be afraid?"

She didn't care enough to express her fear. That seemed like the easiest answer.

"But even if that were true, you'd still FEEL the fear, even if you didn't show it."

… Blaze had to concede that the voice in her head had a point.

"So, let's try again. Why aren't you scared of the dark?"

Finally fed up with the voice, Blaze mouthed voicelessly, "Why don't you tell me?"

"Let me tell you what you know that will help you figure this out: Nightshade, or, just to make this easy for you, 'I', gained emotions through my link to you. But did you think it was a one-way street?"

"… I didn't think about it at all…" Blaze mouthed silently.

"Well then, might I suggest thinking about it?"

"… I'm not afraid of the dark…" Blaze said slowly, her voice slowly returning, "…because Nightshade wasn't afraid of the dark…"

"Very good. And I'm sure you're aware of a few other mental facets that I lacked that you would have been better off lacking as well."

"… What's your point?"

"My point is this: You destroyed me when you blasted me with raw plasma. But did I ever do the same thing to you?"

"… No… Which means…"

"As cliched as it sounds, I am still alive in you. Except instead of metaphorically so, I am LITERALLY alive in you, or rather, AS a part of you."

"… But not enough that you can still think or feel your own thoughts and emotions…"

"Well, no…but the line between the two of us was becoming blurred. You said it yourself when you first told Sharp about how we were connected. All of that has been undone inside me, but do you think that's true with you?"

"… No…" Blaze's voice by this point had actually reached a normal whisper. And then the red flag shot up. "But that means that-"

"Yes. It means that my body can still track you. And you know that without 'me' to restrain it, it won't waste any time doing just that."

"…"

"You can stop it, Blaze. In fact, you're the only one who can. It'll be tough, but all you need is the will. Remember, you two are almost equals. He won't exactly have an easy time beating you, let alone killing you, now." With that, the voice faded. Blaze sighed, then looked up at her remaining teammates.

"… Where do you think you're going?!" Kingfisher was shouting at Sharp.

"I'm going back out there, Fisher… Someone has to stop Nightshade. And if the Commander won't, then I at least have to try." Sharp was turning toward the water, getting ready to swim for it.

"… Wait…" Blaze said quietly, rising to her feet.

"Huh? Commander?" Sharp turned and looked at her.

"I want you and Fisher to leave the Arctic. Return to HQ and tell them everything we know about Nightshade; every power he has; what his connection to my dad's research is; and everything else we've got on him. Have them prepare to face him if I fail. _Dohn luh mah_?"

"… Understood, Commander," Sharp answered, saluting. "There's just one question I have to ask. Exactly HOW are we going to make it back?"

"I suppose I could try flying us out…" Kingfisher groaned, obviously not confident in the idea.

"No. You'd be sitting ducks even if Fisher wasn't wounded. I want you to take the Molotov. There should be enough fuel to get you out of Nightshade's range. At that point, feel free to try and fly out, or call for transport from HQ."

"What about you?"

"I assumed that much was clear, Sharp: I'm making my last stand against Nightshade."

"Do you have any ideas on HOW you're going to beat him?"

"… I'll think of something," she murmured.

"… Okay, Commander. We'll leave it in your hands, then."

"Hey, Commander?" Kingfisher interrupted, "As much as I like the idea of not having to fight Nightshade…how are we supposed to use the Molotov if it isn't here?"

"…" Blaze had completely forgotten that she had left the bike behind, back in the ice cavern. "… _Tzao gao_."

"… That's a problem, isn't it?" Kingfisher sighed.

Blaze looked around the horizon, trying to pinpoint the locations of both the ice cavern where the Molotov was still hidden and the iceberg where Nightshade had killed Dust and Smith.

"… Nightshade is tracking us by following my signal. If you guys take a roundabout route back to the ice cavern, you should be able to avoid Nightshade while I lure him here."

"And are we supposed to SWIM there?" Kingfisher asked, both agitated and apprehensive about the prospect of swimming in the frigid waters.

"You're ice-based, Fisher. If anyone should be complaining, it's Sharp," Blaze answered.

"You know, she has a point, Fisher," Sharp said, looking at the icy water with some apprehension.

"… Fair enough," Kingfisher admitted after a moment.

"Unless there are any other questions," Blaze looked at them questioningly, "I am ordering both of you to get the _guai _out of here."

"… I can't swim, ma'am," Sharp admitted, rather sheepishly, "I sink like a rock wrapped in lead."

"… Fisher, come here for a second," Blaze gestured as, after some exertion, she created a tiny dash thruster in the tip of her index finger. It wasn't a perfect blowtorch, but it would burn hot enough.

"What are you thinking, Commander?"

"I'm…gonna try and fix some of your injuries."

"Woah, wait WHAT?! Commander, with all due respect, you've NEVER shown any medical skills."

"… I promise you won't end up any worse, _dohn ma_?"

"Oh, alright. For the record, though, I STILL don't like this," Kingfisher grumbled, before Blaze put another finger next to her ear, allowing several nanites to enter through the ear into Kingfisher's brain, where they proceeded to download her full schematics before returning to Blaze's finger.

Blaze compared the designs to the current, post-injury scans and determined that she couldn't replace the missing armor plating, but most of the internal parts were manageable. Extending her torch finger so it could reach into the holes Nightshade's blaster shots had left, she set about welding the metal parts that the bullets had cut. She was even able to remove the shards of armor from Kingfisher's artificial organs and weld them back into her armor.

"Not quite Lifesaver quality, but it's better than it was. How do you feel?"

"Well, not having chunks of myself jammed into my guts is very fucking pleasant," Kingfisher grinned.

"Do you think you could carry Sharp back to the cave without killing yourself?"

"Definitely! Hell, I could probably fly underwater, now!"

"Good to hear. Do it."

"Yes ma'am! Come on, Sharp!"

"Alright. Take care, Commander-WOAH!" Sharp was cut off as Kingfisher snatched Sharp's wrist, launching both of them into the frigid waters.

"So, this is it, Blaze…" Blaze murmured softly to herself. She drew her katana, and twirled it several times, as she continued to try and reassure herself, "This is it. No running. No falling. You HAVE to win this one…" She raised one of her hands, charging up a spark of to make herself a more visible target.

After that, it was all a matter of patience.

* * *

Staring back out across the icy water, she saw nothing. No sign of Nightshade. No sign of Sharp or Fisher either, which was good. Still, the suspense was beginning to wear away at Blaze's nerves. She knew how fast Nightshade was, and knew that he wouldn't take a leisurely pace in his present state of mind.

Suddenly, she heard an explosion and, turning to locate it, saw a rapidly expanding blast of energy…

… And quickly realized that the explosion had come from the cavern where she had left the Molotov.

"… _Ai ya jwai leh_!"

Blaze leapt into the air, her wings materializing and her dash thrusters firing with as much force as they could muster. As she flew toward the blast at incredible speed, she prayed that it was just a malfunction. But she knew better than that.

"He must have seen the damage I left in the ice when I grabbed Fisher… And when he saw the bike, he knew someone would be back for it. I am so _yu bun duh_!" Blaze berated herself as she strained her dash thrusters to get a little extra speed. "And he probably figured out that my power burst was just bait! Blaze you are the most _chwen _strategist of all time!"

Then, she heard cracking. Glancing back at her legs, she saw that the armor was beginning to crack under the force of the thrusters being pushed past their safe power levels.

"Oh, _ta ma duh_…"

* * *

The ice bird was giving Nightshade some problems: She was still more mobile than Nightshade could track while being constantly under fire from the stealth robot's cannon. As he fired again, the bird dodged. As he turned his attention to the stealth robot, however, he suddenly found himself leaping away from several icicles that were clearly not simple ice.

The wings needed to go. As the bird made another pass at him to slash him with the razor-like edges of her wings, Nightshade drew his katana and, in the same motion, severed her right wing, catching it in his other hand, and then turning and throwing it at the ice bird as she fell. The sharp-edged wing caught her in the stomach, pinning her to the ice and cutting deeply into her abdomen. Nightshade was unsure if the wound would be lethal, but without the wing the bird was threat-neutral owing to a lack of ground combat capabilities.

He then turned his attention to the stealth fighter, but in the brief moment he had spent neutralizing the ice bird, the stealth fighter had activated his camouflage while out of sight. Without a location to extrapolate from, Nightshade had no way of detecting his opponent. All he could do was attack randomly.

Of course, there were ways to increase the probability of success. Nightshade realized this as he began charging up a plasma strike. Whoever had designed this weapon had shown a great deal of ingenuity in doing so. As uncontrollable as the blasts were, their varying paths allowed them to strike enemies simply by proximity.

Leaping into the air, Nightshade launched two strings of plasma down, intending to sweep the area. The two beams immediately curved back together into one, but as they neared the surface of the iceberg, they angled off slightly to strike at the stealth fighter, causing his camouflage to malfunction and stopping him in his tracks.

Nightshade continued to release energy, until his sensors detected a rapidly-approaching mass emitting extreme levels of energy.

Before he could even turn to acquire a visual, the mass smashed into him full force. Almost immediately as they collided, Nightshade detected a spike in the mass's energy levels, as if they were about to go critical.

The explosion that sent him skipping across the ice confirmed his suspicions.

* * *

Blaze raised herself to one knee, but was stuck in place by the tremendous pain. The armor around her lower legs was completely shattered. The dash thrusters had overheated from the excessive power use, and when she crashed into Nightshade, they had exploded violently, tearing away the armor, and heavily damaging her legs and feet.

As she watched the scattered pieces of herself, she saw them reform into small components such as nuts, bolts, gears, and wires, which then reassembled themselves around her legs into the various systems, while the fragments of her armor plating fused back into a single larger plates, which then rejoined the frames of her boots.

"Commander…" Sharp croaked from where he lay, crimson plasma still shooting through his body.

"Sharp!" Blaze gasped, slowly stumbling over to him, "Are you okay?!"

"Everything in my body hurts like fuck-all, but other than that I'm good…" Sharp grinned painfully, then once again assumed a serious expression, "I think Fisher might be hurt…"

"THAT IS THE FUCKING UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE CENTURY, DUMBASS!" Kingfisher shouted in a gargled, but in no way diminished, voice.

"Fisher…" Blaze breathed, staring in shock at Kingfisher's broken form.

"… It's that bad, huh?" Kingfisher sighed, trying to grin, "I should've guessed that, though… I can't feel a fucking thing… And you just fixed my guts, too…"

"Don't die, Fisher…" Blaze pleaded, almost sobbing, "I've let too many die already… I can't add you to the list, too…"

"Sorry, Commander…but…I think you might have to…"

Blaze slowly realized that Kingfisher had stopped breathing.

"… No…"

"I'm sorry, Commander," Sharp murmured.

Then, over Blaze's shoulder, Sharp saw Nightshade rising, drawing his gun.

"Commander!"

Nightshade already had his gun aimed. But as he was halfway through pulling the trigger, the gun suddenly exploded in a brilliant flash of light.

Blaze was on her feet, her revolver drawn and aimed, its barrel smoking. In the time it had taken for Nightshade to twitch his finger, Blaze had drawn her revolver, and fired an almost impossible shot straight down the primed barrel of his gun. As her shot had passed through the amplification crystal of his, it had received enough of a power boost to almost completely fragment the gun.

Blaze simply glowered at Nightshade as he looked around at the scattered pieces. Since they were a separate entity, the fact that they were nanite-based was irrelevant. Without conscious manipulation, Nightshade couldn't reform the gun.

And his expression made that much clear to Blaze.

"_Nee tzao se mah_? I hope so, because I'm about to make it happen," Blaze declared, drawing her katana, which burned a bloody crimson. "This is it, _ta ma de hun dan_."

* * *

So another has fallen, but Blaze is finally ready to end the fight.

All color commentary appreciated.


	14. Showdown

So, here it is: The final, climactic clash between Blaze and Nightshade.

So, read on, review it, and enjoy the bloody thing.

**My Characters, "Sciences", Etc. © Me.**

**Mega Man X Series © Capcom.

* * *

**

Nightshade couldn't understand what had just happened.

Or, rather, he couldn't understand HOW what had just happened had happened. The girl had drawn, aimed, and fired faster than he had pulled the trigger. Not only that, but she had made a nearly impossible shot INTO the barrel of his gun, destroying it.

Comprehension would have to come later, however. While he had been distracted by the phenomenal nature of her shot, the girl was charging with her katana, preparing a horizontal strike. Nightshade drew his own blade, forming it into a katana as well. He held it up vertically to block her strike, and prepared for a strong impact, as she was using both her engines and her wings. Suddenly, just before the actual attack was made, Nightshade sensed a pulse of energy from the girl, and the sword strike came out with more speed and power than he had calculated the she was capable of generating.

EXPONENTIALLY more than he thought.

His blade almost disintegrated on contact, the comparatively weak bonds of his amorphous blade's nanites shattering beneath the force of her solid blade. The larger shards of the blade were blown back into Nightshade, piercing his armor in a few places. None of the wounds were deep, but Nightshade was stunned by the power the girl had mustered.

The fact that she had continued the slash to cut through his chest had added to the shock that was paralyzing his systems.

He turned, rolling with the force of strike, even though the girl's blade had already passed entirely through his body. The girl had barrel-rolled as she hit the ground, dropping her revolver and clutching her chest in pain. Crimson electricity was circling the area.

Nightshade quickly made several observations. First, the hilt of the girl's katana was damaged, bearing what looked like plasma residue. From this, combined with the smoke pouring from the barrel of the revolver, Nightshade determined that she had fired her gun into the hilt of her sword to boost the speed of her strike.

His second observation was that the crimson electricity bore the same energy signature as his core energy. This indicated that he was somehow the cause of this strange wound.

His final observation was that the area of her body that was affected was the same area she had just sliced open on him, and the even the areas on his body where he had been pierced by the shards of his sword were translated to her. This implied that their systems were intertwined in some way.

And that didn't make any sense at all.

* * *

Blaze bit back a roar of pain as she hit the ice, rolling over her shoulder. She had taken Nightshade's sword from him, but only for as long as she kept him from focusing on reconstructing it. Which meant she had to get up and keep fighting.

Easier said than done. Apparently, the shared pain aspect of their connection was still in effect. It was now just one-way. And, of course, the "one way" was from him into her.

"_Wo pi gu cao_…" Blaze realized, speaking it aloud without realizing it.

As she dodged a spin-kick from Nightshade, his voice suddenly filled her mind.

"Correction: You cannot win as it is now. You need to sever the link at your end. Otherwise, you'll never be able to hurt him enough without your own body stopping you, and then your ass will indeed be fucked."

As Blaze struck Nightshade in the nose with an elbow, and recoiled slightly herself, she couldn't help wonder how she was supposed to do that. Was she supposed to get Nightshade to blast her with a stream of plasma?

"Don't even THINK about that. Without your pain to cut him off when the damage is great enough, he can maintain a blast long enough to wipe ALL of your programming, including your core functions."

As Nightshade blocked her knee strike, and delivered a palm strike to her chest, Blaze swore internally. How the hell was she supposed to separate his programming from her body, then?

"Well, think about it. How did they get there in the first place?"

Even as she delivered a hook kick to Nightshade's abdomen, Blaze's mind recalled the moment when, back in the destroyed Maverick Lab, Nightshade had pierced her with his hand, attempting to infect her with the Rage Virus.

"Understand, now?"

But Blaze couldn't accept that the answer was as simple as that. If it were that easy, Nightshade would have done it himself.

"I didn't know how the link worked, and wasn't sure if it would hurt either of us. But as your plasma blast proved, wiping the programming from the foreign nanites won't cause any permanent damage. So if you simply remove them, what's the worst that could happen?"

Nothing. Blaze couldn't think of anything that could go wrong. Not that it changed the fact that she and Nightshade were both effectively invincible.

"That does present a problem. Given an eternity of combat, I will probably find out a way to kill you first."

Well, that was just fantastic.

"So, I guess we should start thinking if we want more than a snowball's chance in hell of beating me to the punch," the voice suggested.

Lovely. Where the hell were they… Blaze stopped as she realized that she was now referring to herself in the plural, almost allowing herself to be struck by a hammer strike.

"Oh, _jahn_…" Blaze couldn't help but speaking aloud this time.

"Worry about it later. Right now, we need to think. What was I trying to do when I stabbed you?"

Blaze thought back to the Rage Virus. Then, she thought of her own immunity to the virus due to her physical structure, recalling that that was the very thing that had caused their systems to become scrambled.

"A virus wouldn't work. That much is true."

And Blaze didn't have a virus anyway. Plus, this had opened up the possibility of their systems becoming scrambled more, rather than less.

"Not exactly. You had no physical control of your own nanites at the time, and I didn't know that you were nanite-based and thus had to be careful of cross-infection."

Okay, so their systems probably wouldn't be scrambled further. That didn't explain what the transfer had to do with beating him.

"When was the time I was weakest?"

Blaze thought back once again to the initial incident where Nightshade had scrambled their systems, as she thrust a spear-hand strike at Nightshade's throat.

"Close, and that's an important point too, but perhaps it would make more sense if, instead of 'weakest', I said 'most vulnerable'."

What the hell was the difference?

"Try 'emotionally vulnerable', then."

And then Blaze thought back to when Nightshade had kissed her. For a robot who supposedly had no emotional programming of his own, he had been a pretty good kisser. And he had been so gentle…

"Get a hold of yourself, Blaze! You have the right event. But remember WHY I kissed you…apart from the burning romantic tension."

Blaze had to think for a moment about this one.

"Here's a clue: Because of that kiss, you can actually fight me on semi-equal footing now."

"… The program transfer…" Blaze mouthed to herself, as she launched two crescent kicks in sequence, one low, one high. Nightshade leapt over the first, but took the second straight on.

"Exactly. My nanites ARE the virus. They must actually infiltrate a reploid's mental circuits and physically take control. So, the virus is not so much a 'virus' as much as it is a specific form of remote control."

But a data transfer would be accepted by Nightshade's systems.

"Now you're beginning to understand."

The only question left was what she was supposed to give him that would kill him.

"Which brings us to the central truth about me. What is it the made me continue to fight you, even when I didn't want to?"

Blaze thought hard for a moment, even as she somersaulted over a sweep kick.

"I'll make it easy for you. I'm a robot, not a reploid."

That much was easy enough. Now how did it help?

"If I was not created with the capacities for free will or emotion, what makes you think that my computer systems could HANDLE free will? I may be physically stronger, but program damage will hurt me just as much as any other machine. When you transfer the nanites back into me, send it with a program I can't handle."

Blaze shook her head. Nightshade had been able to handle emotion just fine when they were linked.

"I could handle the emotions by using YOUR nanites to feel them. By that point, they had been in my system so long that they had begun to recognize themselves as a part of me just as much as they were a part of you, which is how I began to feel emotions on my own, and how I was able to defy my directives in small ways, like letting you escape so I couldn't follow you back to your team, at least immediately."

Blaze reflected on this, blocking a thrust kick from Nightshade, trying to piece together the whole plan. In short, she had to reinsert Nightshade's Nanites back into his body, but just moments before she did, transfer a copy of her programming into the nanites so that they wouldn't self-destruct before they spread the program through Nightshade's system, causing a complete mental breakdown.

"I thought you could only tell me things that I already know," Blaze asked aloud, but directing the statement toward the voice in her head.

"… Is that really important, right now?"

"Not really," Blaze murmured as her right hand began adopted a mirror-like sheen, almost like mercury. Mentally, she located the nanites inside of her neural cord that belonged in Nightshade's, and gently extracted them, using the surrounding nanites to force them into the tips of her fingers.

The time had come to put an end to this nightmare.

* * *

Nightshade instantly recognized the danger presented when her saw the color of the girl's hand change from silver to mirror-polish. She was going to try and insert something into his body. While he was confident in his physical invulnerability, he had some doubts about whether or not he could withstand an attack on his programming. Still, to be effective, it would have to infect every one of his neural nanites individually, but perhaps the girl had thought of this, and had prepared for it.

As she attempted a spear-hand thrust at his chest, Nightshade noticed that she was using his own technique for viral infection against him.

As he blocked it easily, and launched a powerful uppercut into her throat, he realized that she was exerting far more effort to do it than he would have. It probably meant that there was more to it than just injecting something into him. It also meant, however, that she would be very vulnerable when she tried to attack. She attacked again, aiming slightly higher this time, and covering with one hand to intercept a block, but he was able to knock her cover aside with a simple axe-kick, then grabbed the wrist of her attacking hand with both hands and flung her over his shoulder, slamming her into the ice and sending her sliding across the slick surface.

Suddenly, someone grabbed him in a bear hug. Looking at the armor around his attacker's forearms, Nightshade deduced that it was the stealth warrior. Of course, who else could it have been? The ice bird had been confirmed dead, and the girl was still in his line of sight. Nightshade determined that these observations were relatively unimportant, as the girl was back on her feet, and preparing another strike. Nightshade tried to force the stealth fighter to release him, but physics were against him. The stealth fighter was larger than he was, and had a solid hold. Realizing there was only one way out of it, Nightshade grabbed one of his attacker's forearms, and initiated a plasma blast from the emitter in his palm. The blood-red energy began shooting through the stealth fighter's body. This weakened his grip somewhat, but because of the way he held Nightshade, Nightshade was also damaged by the plasma blast. Nightshade had anticipated some damage, but it was more incapacitating than he had predicted: enough that he still couldn't free himself from his attacker's grasp. Suddenly, he realized that the girl was now in striking range. As she lashed out with her hand, Nightshade jumped upward, just high enough to reach her wrist with his free hand, and immediately began blasting plasma into her as well.

But then, he saw her grin. Looking at her hand, he realized that she had faked him out with her other hand. She then grabbed onto his wrist with the same hand, completing the circuit, and adding her own plasma blast to the mix while drawing back her infection hand for a strike straight at his chest.

Nightshade's mind raced, trying to find a way to stop her. Quickly calculating how much force she would have, he forced his nanites to converge upon the spot where she would hit, making the armor hard enough at that point to keep her from penetrating to his neural core.

It worked. The girl's fingertips bounced off of the thickened armor, shocking her.

Not sure if he could repeat the same maneuver whilst having the plasma looped back into him three times over, Nightshade grabbed the stealth fighter, whose grip had been weakened further by the addition of the girl's energy discharge, and swung him into the girl, sending both of them flying.

* * *

Blaze swore as she hit the ice. That should have worked, yet somehow, Nightshade had been able to deflect her strike seemingly by force of will.

Suddenly, she realized that Sharp had been hit by a double dose of raw plasma.

"_Go se_!" she spat, stumbling over to Sharp, who laid still, crimson and gold electricity still flashing across his body. "Sharp! Are you okay?! Answer me!"

No response. Sharp's vitals were still strong, but he was simply staring ahead blankly, he eyes hazy and unfocused.

"… _TIAN XIA SUO YOU DE REN DOU GAI SI_!!!" Blaze screamed. Sharp had been mentally wiped by the plasma blast.

Turning to Nightshade, she charged in a fury, her speed increased by her rage. Yet whether or not Nightshade blocked, every single thrust was deflected as it made contact. Nightshade was controlling the fight effortlessly, and he knew it.

As he sidestepped another charge, Blaze, purely out a burning desire to hurt him, spun and threw a hook kick to Nightshade's ribs. To her amazement, the armor shattered on contact. Blaze was dumbstruck, knowing she hadn't kicked hard enough to do that kind of damage. She leapt back away from Nightshade's counter attack as he reformed his armor, realizing what he how he had defended himself earlier.

She smacked herself internally for not figuring it out. His nanite structure was movable. Therefore, he could change the density of various parts of his body by taking nanites from others. And since there was only one point she could strike with that he had to give any significant thought to, he could always have that one spot covered.

Blaze realized there was only one possible way she was going to beat Nightshade's defenses. And it involved doing exactly what the voice in her head had warned her not to do.

"I'm about to redefine _yu bun duh_ with this…" Blaze murmured as she launched another plasma blast from her left hand. Before it could strike Nightshade, he unleashed a blast from both hands. It easily broke through her attack, which was just under half as powerful, and smashed into her.

Blaze screamed as electricity shot through her entire body, and she collapsed to the ground. Nightshade continued to blast her for a few more seconds, before her systems began shutting down.

* * *

Nightshade ceased his plasma discharge once he felt the girl's energy signature fade. There was still an incredibly weak signature, but he attributed it to leftover energy from her previous discharge. Soon, it too faded.

Nightshade quickly scanned the stealth fighter as well. His systems seemed to have shut down as well, without any mental signal to function.

Satisfied, Nightshade began reconstructing his weapons. First was his blade, then his gun. Without distractions, it was a simple task.

Rearmed again, Nightshade decided that it was time to head south, where there would no doubt be more sentient life to extinguish. The remote possibility existed that there were targets still farther north, but he doubted that they would be worth tracking down this early. After all, he would last a very long time. Once he had taken out the presumably larger chunks of sentient life, he could work on individual targets.

Suddenly, he sensed a small surge of energy from the girl. It was weak, but she was slowly drawing in energy.

Still, it wasn't enough for her to even move, so Nightshade simply walked over to her, watching her struggling. Her silver body had become more organic looking, with black armor and hair, both bearing streaks and patches of fiery red and orange. Her synthetic flesh now looked the part, and her left eye had lost its golden hue, turning a pale, sickly yellow color.

Nightshade saw he eyes focus on him, and her right hand rose weakly, forming into another spear-hand strike.

Deciding not to bother with blocking such a weak blow, he simply drew his sword and drove its point directly into her chest. She opened her mouth to scream, but no noise escaped from her throat but a weak gurgle.

Slowly, however, the shock on her face faded, replaced by a weak grin.

"Gotcha…"

As she murmured this one word, her power levels suddenly shot back up again. Nightshade tried to step back, but before he could…

… He felt something pierce through his back, into his main neural cord.

Looking back over his shoulder, he saw the girl's wing rising out of the ice, its tip skewering through his armor.

Nightshade couldn't help but let his mouth gape in shock. Still bearing a stunned expression, he looked back at the girl, who was rising to her feet, her wings rising up from under the ice, the silver color spreading back across her body.

Her grin had faded, however, and, as she removed his sword from her chest, was replaced by an expression that could only be described as sorrow.

"... I win, Nightshade..."

* * *

And so the good guys win another bittersweet victory.

As always, I appreciate every review.


	15. One Last Moment

This is another Chapter I was all over the place with.

The proof? Originally, This was supposed to be from Nightshade's perspective.

Anyways, Read, Enjoy, Review, etc.

**My Characters © Me**

**Mega Man X series © Capcom

* * *

**

Blaze internally sighed in relief. Her plan had somehow worked.

She played it back in her head, still marveling at its success. She had used her plasma blast to bait Nightshade into using his own, then had given up the clash on purpose, allowing Nightshade to strike her. It had been risky, but the plasma blast was the only weapon Nightshade had that she could convince him had been able to incapacitate her. After that, she had just had to fall on her back, grow her wings through the ice, just deep enough so that they were invisible. Then, to draw him in, she had used a modified form of Sharp's active camouflage to make her appear normal and hopefully creating the illusion that she had reverted to a weaker form. The camouflage also served to disguise her power systems, making it appear as though she had been utterly drained of energy. Blaze was then able to reveal them just enough to get Nightshade's attention, but not so much that he perceived her as an actual threat.

As the nanites Nightshade had originally infused into her body passed through her wingtip back into his body, Blaze's pride faded into trepidation, knowing that if this didn't work, she was royally fucked.

Gently, she removed her wing from Nightshade's body and withdrew it back into her armor. Now, there was nothing to do but wait. Nightshade hadn't attacked her yet, which was a good sign, but it could have easily been his shock at being caught off guard.

Still staring at her, Nightshade stumbled back slightly, as blue sparks began to leap from his body. He began twitching slightly, before finally collapsing back onto the ice. The blue sparks grew into crackles of electricity, and large sections of his body began to adopt the glossy black sheen that normally only appeared when he was either preparing the Rage Virus or modifying his body. He tried to raise his right hand, which was beginning to melt. His crimson eyes began to grow hazy as he continued to stare at her in disbelief.

Blaze watched him for what felt like hours. She knew it was only 20 seconds, but it still seemed like ages that he lay there, trying to understand why he was dying. Blaze began to wonder how well he understood what was happening. Did he already know why and how he was dying? Did he know he was dying? WAS he dying?

Then Blaze saw a flash of frustration shoot across Nightshade's face for a brief moment. Blaze knew at that moment that there was no way Nightshade was going to survive. That fact was both a blessing and a curse.

A blessing because he would never kill again.

A curse because she still loved him.

Even as she walked to him, and knelt by his side, she couldn't help but wonder why she was doing it. Or, for that matter, what "it" was she was doing.

As he watched her, Nightshade's confusion seemed to grow.

"… My name is Blaze, Nightshade…" she began, unsure of herself.

He continued to stare at her. The confusion in his eyes had faded, and he simply lay there, his gaze boring coldly into hers.

What had she expected? She knew that all of his emotions and memories had been erased. So why was she speaking to him? Did she expect some kind of response?

No. She was doing it because she needed to let it out, even if it meant nothing to him in the end.

"You probably only remember the last few hours of your life," Blaze began, "That…isn't a lot of time you're missing, since…you've only been active, as far as I know, for just over a day. Not that you can tell, with the utter lack of sunlight and all…" she chuckled nervously.

Nightshade still didn't respond, though.

"… Still, in that one day, there was a lot of crap you were involved in. I was…involved in most of it, too," she sighed, Nightshade's cold gaze breaking down her resolve. "… I'm the one who deleted your memories," she finally admitted, before sadly adding, "…along with so much else…"

She thought she saw Nightshade's head tilt just slightly, but she decided not to get her hopes up.

"It was an accident… But I was trying to kill you…and I only partly succeeded…" Blaze whispered, her voice beginning to crack.

She didn't know why she felt the need to explain herself to him, but then again, she didn't know why she was even talking to him. Maybe it was just to clear her conscience. Still, now that she had gotten it out of the way, she desperately wanted to move away from that subject.

"… Before my failed attempt to kill you…you were different…" she began again, "You were still compulsively trying to kill my team and me. But…you had developed compassion… You even let me live a few times when you could have killed me…" She paused, sighing.

Nightshade still continued to regard her with the same empty gaze, but she detected the faintest traces of skepticism in his eyes.

"… I know we were enemies…" Blaze nodded, frowning slightly, "…We STILL ARE enemies…" she corrected herself, her gaze turning to the distant horizon.

She could almost imagine Nightshade's eyebrow raising as she looked back at him and smiled.

"But I still love you…" she spoke softly, feeling the tears beginning to form in her eyes as she added, "… And…there was a point where you loved me, too… Nightshade…"

This time, Nightshade's eyes DEFINITELY widened in confusion.

"It probably seems crazy to you…" Blaze chuckled, nervously twiddling her hair for a moment, "But then again, I'm pretty convinced I'M crazy, so maybe all of this is too…"

She wondered despairingly if any of this had struck a chord with Nightshade. But she already knew that it hadn't.

"You know what? It FEELS kind of crazy right now, sitting here, talking to you about things you don't remember, and probably don't believe…" she chuckled again, "And all the while, I'm probably desperately waiting for you to show some kind of emotional response…" she choked slightly as she finished, "…a response I know you can't give me anymore…"

Nightshade's gaze seemed to have softened slightly, but it could have easily been because it had also grown hazier, as if he was having trouble focusing.

"The first time we met, you tried to kill me, as per your first directive. If I remember the wording correctly, it was 'Purify the planet'. You tried to infect me with the Rage Virus. The thing is," Blaze grinned wryly, "I was immune to it. You ended up mixing the two of us up. After that, we suddenly shared everything. Thoughts, feelings, and…pain…"

As she said this, she could have sworn that she saw Nightshade's lips form the word "Oh…" but at that point, her vision was so blurred with tears she couldn't be sure.

"Because we were so intimately linked, you were concerned that our deaths would be linked as well. That's why you let me live. And a few times, we'd talk through the link we shared. That's how we developed a sort of friendship… Despite the fact that I'd always threaten or just insult you at first…" Blaze chuckled as she said this. "Then, during one of our fights, I finally overcame my fear of death and tried to kill myself and take you with me. It almost worked…"

Nightshade's expression was still unchanged, but Blaze could almost hear him ask, "Was that when you erased my memories?"

Blaze shook her head, giving a silent answer to what she thought was his question. And if he didn't understand the gesture, well, then he probably didn't understand what she was going on about anyway. "No. In fact, almost the opposite… Somehow, being that close to death closed the gap between our personalities, and you began to feel true emotion. Before that, my emotions had gradually been feeding into you, molding themselves to fit your perspective. But after that fight, you told me that you were feeling emotions of your own. And before you ask, I'll just tell you that I have NO idea how it worked out like that: you never explained it to me, and from the way you said it, it sounded like you didn't understand it yourself."

Almost without realizing it, she reached down and gently clasped Nightshade's hand in her own. She felt a few sparks of electricity jump between them, but they weren't painful.

"That's when you…you told me that if you killed me, you'd feel compelled to take your own life…" Blaze blushed, as she continued, "And then…you kissed me…"

Nightshade's face didn't change, but Blaze again heard his voice asking, "… What?"

Briefly wondering if the fact that she was imaging his voice meant she really WAS as crazy as she thought, she quickly sputtered, "It was only to transfer a program into my head! … Well, mostly…" After taking a second to regain her composure, she explained, "Actually…it's how I became as strong as you. You see, when we first fought, only my neural and power systems were nanite-based."

As Blazed continued to meet Nightshade's gaze, she recalled the memory of the second kiss, and debated telling him about that, too.

Why the hell not?

"I kissed you back, though…" Blaze grinned, but was blushing furiously, "and I can't think of any reason that I would do that except that I was in love with you…"

Suddenly, Nightshade's face seemed…darker in hue than before. Was he…blushing?

After a moment, Blaze decided his face was simply turning darker as the nanites began to lose contact with one another, no longer able to simulate the texture of skin.

"Despite all of the stuff you had done, and despite all of the lives you had taken, and despite all of the lives you were still compelled to take…" Blaze said, her grin fading, "I still fell in love with you. I don't know what you saw in me…and I wish I had thought to ask when I had the chance…"

Looking at his emotionless expression, she finished, "… Because you probably couldn't tell me if I asked you now…"

Then, she noticed that his mouth was just slightly open. Had it been like that before? She was sure it hadn't, but since her emotions were muddling her brain so much, she was sure she was just counterfeiting memories, trying to find some remnant of the boy she had fallen in love with in Nightshade's expression.

"… I promised to kill you before you killed anyone else," Blaze finally began again, after a long moment of silence.

Casting a glance over at the mind-wiped Sharp and the nearly bisected Kingfisher, Blaze murmured, "I guess I fucked that up very, very badly…" She sniffled slightly, before apologizing, "… I'm sorry Nightshade. I know it doesn't mean anything to you now, but I'm still sorry…"

Suddenly, Nightshade's body seized up, his hand squeezing hers tightly, his eyes closing for a moment, and his jaw clenching. A fresh wave of sparks flickered through his body.

"Does it hurt?" Blaze asked timidly, simultaneously afraid that this was the end and curious as to why he was reacting to pain so…humanly.

Nightshade still didn't speak, but as his body gradually relaxed, and the electricity died down again, he nodded once. It was cold and mechanical, but it was something.

"… I'm so sorry, Nightshade," Blaze apologized again, squeezing his hand gently.

Nightshade simply looked at her. It was obvious he was still in pain, but it was no longer as sharp as before.

"… I wish there were another way, Nightshade… But the only thing I could come up with was to cause your system to crash…"

Nightshade didn't visibly react to this statement.

"I guess you're wondering what it is…" Blaze stopped mid-sentence, "No… I guess you don't care whether I tell you or not…"

Still nothing.

"… The program I transferred into you… It's a copy of my personality program. My emotions, thoughts, feelings, and…capacity for free will. I'm sure you know…" Blaze paused, choking on her words, "… I'm sure you know that your mind can't handle those things…" Blaze stopped again, sniffling.

She had told herself she expected no response from Nightshade.

She had told herself she KNEW he wouldn't give her any kind of emotional response.

And yet, his silence was still too much for her to handle.

And now, she was brokenly crying over him.

"… I'm sorry…" Blaze murmured through her sobs, then laughed once, sadly, "I don't even know why I apologized for that. It's not like you can care whether or not I can say what I need to say…" she sniffled, trying hopelessly to wipe her eyes, "… If you did care…or if you even COULD care…you wouldn't be dying, would you?"

Nightshade blinked once, then looked up at the sky, his breathing becoming gradually more ragged. What was he looking at?

Nothing. Blaze silently scolded herself for trying to assign meaning to meaningless gestures. Taking a deep breath, she tried to relax.

After another long moment, she was able to speak again. "… I'm going to miss you, Nightshade… You're…" Blaze tried to find the right words, "… My best friend…and my worst enemy…and…and _wo de tian a_, I love you…" she said one last time.

Having no more to say, Blaze leaned down and kissed Nightshade gently. It was cold, without any return from Nightshade, but Blaze didn't complain. It was the last chance she would ever have.

Suddenly, she felt Nightshade's free hand reach up and quaveringly clutch her shoulder, weakly pulling her deeper into the kiss. Blaze's eyes were wide with shock, but she quickly decided comprehension could come later, returning back to the kiss with a as much passion as she could muster.

When they finally parted lips, she stared at Nightshade in awe.

"…How…?"

"… B-blaze… I-I…c-can…f-feel…" he stuttered. His voice was weak, but he still managed to curl his lips up ever so slightly, almost smiling.

Blaze began to return the smile, but then saw Nightshade's eyelids drop. He let out one long exhale, and then was perfectly still.

Blaze stared, transfixed as Nightshade's body began to destroy itself, each nanite bursting into a small cloud of crimson light. Each burst was accompanied by the faint sound of glass breaking.

Finally, it was all over. Nightshade had left no trace of his body behind.

Blaze didn't even realize she was speaking as she murmured, "Goodbye… Nightshade…"

Tears were flowing from her eyes, but she was too confused to weep.

* * *

And so ends the battle between The Twenty-First and Nightshade.

Of course, to quote Sgt. Nicholas Angel, "There is no way you can perpetrate that amount of carnage and mayhem and not incur a considerable amount of paperwork."

Also, 20 points to whoever can figure out what Nightshade's last line is a tribute to/was stolen from.


	16. Going Home

Not much to say about this chapter, except that I hope you find my characterization of Zero acceptable. So…

Read, Review, Enjoy.

**My Intellectual Property © Me**

**Megaman X Series © Capcom

* * *

**

"… And that's the whole story?"

"… Yes, sir…"

Blaze and Zero stood on the bridge of the command ship Zero had been given control of for the recon mission. The small group had included two more transports, carrying excavation, medical, and combat personnel from HQ. Zero was calm, as always, but Blaze was still shaking.

From what Zero had said, HQ had first started to suspect trouble when they attempted to contact the Arctic Base to confirm Blaze's arrival, and received no response. Since Abel City's teleportation network didn't extend into the region, both the 0 and 13th units had been sent to investigate. Upon arrival at the destroyed base, Zero had called for reinforcements, as well as the crews that were currently digging through the wreckage of both the Arctic base and the Maverick Lab.

For her part, Blaze had just finished telling a huge, grandiose lie about what had happened from the time of her arrival to that point, cutting out all mention of her connection with Nightshade.

Blaze suddenly felt dizzy, and stumbled back a step, before regaining her balance. She hadn't even noticed when the Lifesaver Units had discovered her, Sharp, and Kingfisher, and had taken them aboard the transport. She assumed she had still been in shock.

After a lengthy analysis to determine both whether she was infected with the Sigma Virus and what exactly was the nature of her transformation, she had delivered her report to Zero.

"You, okay, Blaze?" Zero asked, noticing her stumbling.

"… Yes, sir. Just feeling…off."

"Need to sit down?"

"No, sir."

"Sit down if you need to. And don't feel obliged call me 'sir', Blaze. We're both Commanders."

"Yes, sir."

Normally, Hunters of the same rank were permitted to address each other by name, similar to how superior officers addressed lower ranks, especially green recruits, as 'kid', 'rookie', etc. Still, in some cases of equal Military Rank, Combat Rank was used to determine hierarchy. In this case, Blaze was only a Class A while Zero was a Class SA. Besides, this was ZERO. Zero, who was commonly referred to as the Leader of the Maverick Hunters, alongside X. While they were only Commanders in rank, the pair had unofficial authority over all Field operations, with only General Signas and a few other "desk officers" possessing greater control of Hunter operations.

For this reason, Blaze continued to refer to Zero as "sir", despite their equal rank.

"You understand why we felt it necessary to scan you, right?"

"Yes, sir. Nightshade's destruction left no traces, and it was important to confirm that I was not under Maverick influence, and therefore a potential threat, if not the cause of the incident."

"Yeah."

Blaze was still having trouble dealing with the fact that Nightshade was gone. She just couldn't get his last smile out of her head: there was no rational explanation for it, even by the looser standards of "rational" that the events of the day had set up.

"I just hope the Mavericks don't try to make something else like Nightshade again," Zero stated, overlooking the destroyed Arctic Base.

"…Someone," Blaze murmured almost inaudibly.

"Hmm?" Zero turned to her.

"… Sir, could you please…at least around me…refer to Nightshade as 'someone', not 'something'…?"

"No problem," Zero responded coolly, choosing not to pursue the subject, instead turning back to the ruins of the Hunter Base. "Damn… We finally bring an end to the Repliforce War, and this shit goes down not even half a year later…" he murmured, staring out of the large, shielded main window of the transport.

Blaze detected a twinge of sadness in Zero's voice as he mentioned the battle with Repliforce. Something during the War, specifically the final battle aboard the "Final Weapon" satellite-mounted artillery cannon had deeply effected the Hunter Commander. He had returned from the space station a changed reploid. While he had once been known as a smartass, with supreme confidence that was in no way unfounded, he was now cold and distant. He wasn't unkind or cruel, nor was his combat ability diminished in any way, but he no longer possessed his confidence or sense of humor. X seemed to have some knowledge of the incident but, out of respect for his friend, was not forthcoming with the story. Blaze personally suspected that the death of Repliforce's Colonel had played a large part in it: Zero and Colonel had been great friends before the war.

"How are the others?" Blaze asked, trying both to take her mind off of Nightshade, and find out how many of her teammates had any hope of recovery.

That was the advantage of being mechanical in nature. Death was never quite as certain as it was for humans.

"Oh, right," Zero said, as if he'd been awaiting the question. "I talked to the Lifesavers earlier, and they've finished their recovery operations."

"… And?"

"Omicron's more or less a lost cause. They found a few fragments of armor that they think MIGHT be his, but that's about it."

Blaze expected this much. Omicron's death had pretty much obliterated him, so there was little hope of recovering him.

"The Lifesaver Unit in your team was destroyed utterly. The weapon used on him caused complete disintegration, since his armor was not combat-ready."

Again, Blaze had anticipated this. The circumstances of his death more or less ruled out any possibility of revival.

"They haven't tried reactivating Slate yet, but there's a chance he'll be able to make it. According to the medics, his control chip wasn't damaged. Still, given the amount of time he was out, the chip may have degraded. We'll see, though."

Blaze sighed. Of those who still had a reasonably intact body, Slate had been dead the longest. While an undamaged control chip was always good, it still required power to sustain itself. In a sense, it was almost like the brain of a human, in that even if undamaged, if the subject it belonged to died, then it would slowly degrade until it was useless, unless it was preserved with an electric current.

While the control chip could be replaced if the reploid was killed, duplicating a chip was impossible, due to the way it functioned and "learned". Thus, the revived reploid would not be the same individual. This was considered cruel to friends and loved ones, so when a reploid was killed without possibility of revival, the body was turned over to the deceased's family and friends, often in accordance with some form of a Will, to be laid to rest in whatever manner and with whatever ceremonies or traditions the reploid would have preferred. Maverick Hunters were frequently laid to rest in the Abel City Military Cemetery.

"Strike's control chip was actually damaged critically from the laser blast he received. The medics actually wouldn't believe what you said about him living as long as he did. Until they checked his system records, they had determined that he could have survived for MAYBE 10 seconds, let alone 2 hours." Then Zero let out a mildly-humored snort, "Then again, guys from the 14th have a habit of blurring the line between science and mysticism."

Blaze was saddened by this report. She had held out a lot of hope that Strike might be revived, since he had been able to survive with such a grievous wound for so long. Still, if his control chip had been damaged as badly as the medics said, there was no chance he would live again.

"… Do you even need to ask me about Firestorm?" Zero asked skeptically.

"No, sir," Blaze answered. She doubted they would even be able to find ashes, from the description Nightshade had given her of Firestorm's death.

"Okay, then. Dust has actually been fully repaired, but it's purely for funereal purposes. He didn't suffer any damage to his control chip, and it's possible it hasn't degraded too much, but given how unstable his code was after his infection and subsequent vaccination, activating him again would most likely be catastrophic."

Blaze hadn't been prepared for this. Looking back at what Dust had indicated about how repairing such a simple program as his speech code could have disrupted his entire system, however, she realized that she should have seen this coming.

"Smith's in pretty bad shape right now, but he has the distinction of having survived, albeit by pure luck, through near-complete bodily destruction before, so the medics are somewhat optimistic about his recovery. He was dead long enough that he'll be a bit out of sorts for a while, but he should be able to overcome it."

Blaze managed a weak grin at this. This as the first good news she'd received about the team. Realizing that Slate hadn't died too long before Smith, she hoped that Smith's favorable chances meant that Slate might make it too.

"Kingfisher's actually already up, about, and giving the medics hell," Zero said plainly, causing Blaze not only to grin wider, but also to giggle a bit.

"That sounds like her, sir," Blaze said cheerily. Then, she realized who was last on the list, and prepared herself for the worst. "… What about Sharp, sir?"

"He's…" Zero paused for a moment, trying to find the right words, "He's alive. He was actually only on the receiving end of a few minor injuries, physically speaking…"

"… But his mind was wiped…" Blaze finished the sentence for Zero, sadly.

"… Yes. The medics have tried to insert data from his last Brain Scan, but unfortunately, because of the destruction of the Arctic Base, the most recent data they could access was from before his transfer to the 21st."

"… Which happened during the Sigma Rebellion…" Blaze realized. Blaze chuckled despairingly, before adding, "And let me guess… Above and beyond being completely out of date, the data isn't in any way complete, so his personality isn't even fully intact, right?"

"That's more or less exactly what I was going to say," Zero answered, "For all intents and purposes, the Sharp you knew is gone. The Sharp in the medical ship bears a great resemblance to him, both in personality and skill, but it is unlikely that he'll ever be quite the same."

Blaze sighed, finally deciding that she DID need to sit down. Resting her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands, she let out a long exhale. As glad as she was that Kingfisher, Smith, hopefully Slate, and Sharp, in a way, had survived, she felt incredible sadness over the deaths of Omicron, Lifesaver, Strike, Firestorm, and Dust, as well as Sharp, from a certain point of view.

As she once again thought of Nightshade, her body began to shudder, as she finally began releasing the wave of sobs that shock had bottled up inside of her after Nightshade's death.

"Once we're done here, we'll be heading back to HQ," Zero said, "Signas is probably going to want a detailed report from you when we get there, just so you know."

"… That report is going to include my resignation from the Maverick Hunters…" Blaze said slowly.

Zero seemed almost ready for her to say this, and answered, "That's your call, Blaze: I'm not going to stop you. I will say this, though: Having comrades die is part of being a Hunter," Zero hesitated before adding, "You've had to deal with it before, and done so well enough to keep going."

"… Yes…" Blaze said, sniffling, "… Too many times…" Her voice continued to shake, but she tried to speak clearly, "I understand that defeating the Mavericks is important… I BELIEVE it's important… But is my personal contribution as a Hunter enough to outweigh the deaths that seem to follow me to whatever unit I join? I used to convince myself that it did. Now…I can't even bring myself to hope."

"You're one of the better hunters in the Organization, Blaze," Zero said simply. "I regret that we'll lose you, but as I said, it isn't my place to try and talk you out of it. I've seen friends die too. And…I've asked myself the same question…" Zero hesitated as he said this, looking at his own hand for a moment. "Maybe we've just come up with different answers…"

Suddenly, a light began flashing on the command console of the transport. Zero picked up the radio and spoke into it, "This is Zero. Go ahead."

"Commander, the medical teams are all done here. The 13th has offered to stay here and help the clean-up crews. We're ready to head back to HQ when you are, sir."

"Acknowledged. Get ready to head back to base. Zero out."

"Yes, sir."

With that, Zero returned the radio to the console, and flipped a nearby switch, initiating the 5-minute countdown, which echoed in a mechanical voice through the intercom to the hunters outside. The medical ship began broadcasting the same message.

* * *

5 minutes later, both ships had lifted off, leaving one to carry the 13th Unit and the excavation crew back when their tasks were finished. The ride was completely uneventful. Nobody seemed too keen to speak after witnessing the sight of an entire unit having nearly met its demise.

Blaze wished they would.

The monotonous view of the Arctic through the window was hardly engaging, and the silence was giving her too much time to think about Nightshade. All she could see in her mind was that last damn smile.

And it was driving her crazy.

Zero had said that the death of friends and teammates was part of being a Hunter, and that he'd experienced this. Blaze knew he was speaking the truth.

But she hadn't been when she'd said that she lost too many comrades. Every Unit she'd ever been a part of had seen almost total annihilation. She was, as sick as it made her to think it, USED to the deaths.

But killing a loved one… That…THAT she couldn't handle.

Had Zero experienced THAT? Had he managed to overcome the pain that came with THAT?

"… Commander Zero?" she finally asked, still staring out the window.

Zero glanced over his shoulder, and asked, "Yeah, Blaze?"

"You said that…you've experienced the deaths of friends…"

"You doubting that?"

"Not for one second, sir. As you said, it's part of being a Hunter. But…" she turned to face him, her tears beginning to flow again.

"… But what?"

"… Have you ever experienced the death of a loved one?" But Blaze stopped as she asked this, realizing that this wasn't way she needed to ask him, "Wait… I was sugarcoating that…" she murmured.

Zero seemed somewhat taken aback by her initial question, as if he didn't understand what she had asked.

"… Have you ever killed the one you loved?"

Zero's eyes opened wide. His mouth fell open slightly, his lower lip twitching. After a second, he regained his composure, letting out a long sigh. Slowly, he made his way to the nearest chair, and sat down, holding his head the same way Blaze had done earlier.

"… Commander?"

After a long moment, Zero finally looked up, giving Blaze a despairing smile. "… Yes, Blaze… I have been through…that experience…" He sounded exhausted as he said it.

Blaze hated tormenting Zero with what was obviously as painful a subject for him as it was for her, but she had to ask, "… As a Hunter?"

"… Yes. I killed her…in my duties as a Maverick Hunter…"

"… And was she a Maverick?"

"… No… She wasn't…"

"… Nightshade wasn't a Maverick either…" Blaze whispered hoarsely as she sat in the chair beside him.

"… I should've guessed…" Zero chuckled faintly, "…after you got upset at my calling him a 'thing'…"

"… I left a few things out of my report, sir…" Blaze spoke in a tiny voice, "… But I'll make you a deal…"

Zero glanced at her, tearing his gaze away from his hands, which he had been staring at as if they were covered in blood.

"… Tell me your story…and I'll tell you mine…"

Zero didn't speak any words of agreement. He simply began to talk about a reploid girl named Iris.

* * *

Blaze finished describing Nightshade's final moments with a long sigh. Zero had listened intently, as she had done during his tale of Iris.

"So. That's what REALLY happened, Commander," Blaze mumbled.

"… Okay…" Zero said, the cold, distant edge returning to his voice. He rose without a word and returned to his command console. "We'll be docked in a minute," he told Blaze.

"… Yes, sir," Blaze nodded weakly. "I guess I should start working on my report."

"… What you told me earlier is fine," Zero said after a moment.

Blaze was eternally grateful for that. She didn't feel like having her relationship with a Maverick-built robot on her record. It wasn't that she was ashamed, but the truth would make her life exceedingly difficult. "Thank you, sir."

As the transport landed, the crew began to disembark, along with The 0 Unit. As Zero was about to leave, Blaze decided there was one last thing she needed to ask.

"… Commander?"

"Yeah?"

"… How did…" she stopped, working up the nerve to ask what was probably the most personal question she'd ever ask, "… How did you go on…after Iris died?"

Zero sighed, and then turned to face her with a sad smile.

"… I'll let you know when I do…"

"… _Sheh sheh_, Commander. And… I'm sorry…" Blaze saluted before leaving the ship. As much as she'd been hoping for some advice on how to cope with the guilt and pain, knowing that the legendary Zero had felt her grief made her feel a little less helpless.

* * *

Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I apologize to any who feel Zero should be "Bullet-Proof", as Dr. Cox would say.


	17. Fallen Friends

And here we have the penultimate chapter.

Read, Review, and as always, I hope you Enjoy it.

**What's Mine Is Mine.**

**What's Capcom's is Capcom's.**

**The Mechanics' Names are Taken from some of My Friends' Old Characters.

* * *

**

"The Nightshade Incident", as it had been dubbed in the official records: A secret cell of Mavericks loyal to Sigma used nanobot research stolen eleven years prior from Dr. Gregory Setsura to create a Robot meant to develop the power to destroy Sigma's enemies, including both Megaman X and Zero. It turned on its creators, and all other sentient life, due to a loophole in one of its directives. However, after a long battle with the locally-stationed 21st Unit of the Maverick Hunters, it was destroyed by the unit's new CO, Blaze Setsura, utilizing its own nanobot technology against it.

Because of the effort and resources required in the aftermath of the Repliforce War, the Nightshade Incident received little public attention. Due to the loss of the Arctic Base, The Twenty-First Unit had been reassigned to Abel City Headquarters to assist in standard Hunter operations.

At the head of the reorganized unit was Commander "Smith" and Lieutenant Hypothermic Kingfisher. The latter's appointment as Executive Officer was seen by many hunters who knew her as a sign of the coming Apocalypse. Also assigned to the 21st was its remaining combat-ready member, Former-Lietutenant Sharp. His case was somewhat unusual in that he hadn't been retired, but his memories, and thus, his combat experience, had been completely erased, and due to the destruction of the Arctic Base, the only remaining records of his mind predated The X-Hunter Incident. Lieutenant Slate Tortoise was given a transfer to a Military Infrastructure, as he was no longer up to Hunter Combat standards following the incident.

Those lost at Nightshade's hand, Officer Dust Gila, Sergeant Strike Scorpion, Petty Officer Firestorm, Private Omicron, and Lifesaver Unit 31, were cremated at a Military Funeral Service.

The cause of the incident, "Nightshade", was placed on the Maverick Hunter Threat Board, occupying the slot just beneath the Traitor Vava and just above the Soul Eraser Berkana.

And the CO of the 21st, who had been responsible for Nightshade's defeat, Commander Blaze Setsura retired from the Maverick Hunters at the conclusion of the Incident, vanishing almost immediately after the funeral service for her fallen teammates.

* * *

Blaze imagined that the official record would look something like that: A tiny little footnote in the enormity that was the history of the Maverick Hunters.

And maybe that was for the best, Blaze thought as she listened the eulogy of her fallen comrades through the pouring rain. The Maverick Hunters stood rank and file, by Unit, listening to the final glory of the fallen members of the Twenty-First. Despite having already been removed from the Maverick Hunter's active register, she was allowed to stand with her former Unit one last time, as was Slate, despite now being a member of Military Infrastructure.

As Blaze listened to Signas, she felt a twinge of regret that Nightshade would forever be remembered as a villain, or at least a mad dog who had had to be put down. Blaze wanted desperately to tell everyone the truth: that Nightshade had, behind his omnicidal programming, been a gentle soul who had even less of a stomach for violence than she did.

But if she said anything, she was on her own. Signas had already pulled too many strings to allow her to quit, despite the potential threat she represented: Not only had she become exceedingly powerful, she was also at high risk for developing any number of mental defects in addition to the ones already on record. To put it simply, she would normally be considered at high risk for turning Maverick, and thus be required to at the very least remain under surveillance, if not in custody. As it was, she wasn't even being required to regularly check in with a Hunter psychoanalyst.

Given the stares she knew she was receiving, despite having retracted her wings and used her "chameleon circuit" modified camouflage to make her silver skin and armor to look like it once had, there were plenty among the hunters who would demand she be placed under surveillance if they knew that she wasn't.

If it became known that she'd even been friends with, let alone romantically involved with Nightshade, she was as good as jailed: Close ties with an individual who had been turned Maverick, and ESPECIALLY, one who had been destroyed as a result, was THE most common cause of non-viral Maverick conversion.

As a result, she couldn't even confide her secret with the rest of her team, though she was fairly certain that they already knew, or at least suspected, that SOME kind of relationship had developed between the two. If they did, though, they had kept it to themselves in their debriefing sessions.

"PRESENT! ARMS!" Signas's booming voice brought Blaze back to the present, and she watched as two lines of Hunters, each clad in full dress uniform, raised their buster cannons to the sky.

The bodies of Dust and Strike had been placed on funeral "pyres", which in actuality were high-temperature incinerators. These also served as grave markers for fallen hunters, and were thus outfitted with holographic projectors with an image of the Hunter, as well as their name, rank, unit, their operational lifetime, and a short epitaph.

"Officer Dust Gila, 21st Reserve, 2118 - 2131, An Indomitable Will, Unfazed Even by The Virus."

"Sergeant Strike Scorpion, 21st Reserve, 2125 - 2131, A True Believer of Peace Over War, but Never Afraid to Defend that Peace When Called Upon."

"Petty Officer Firestorm, 21st Reserve, 2125 - 2131, The Embodiment of a Warrior's Spirit, with an Ironclad Honor Code."

"Private Omicron Cain, 21st Reserve, 2130 - 2131, Incorruptible, He Personifies The Ideal Maverick Hunter."

"Lifesaver Unit 31, 21st Reserve, 2130 - 2131, He Did His Job His Own Way, Without Compromise In His Skill."

As the Hunters fired their busters in salute, all five incinerators ignited, blue-hot flames vaporizing the bodies of Dust and Strike. Then, they were dark, lit only by the dim holographic projectors.

After that, the Hunters slowly began to disperse, leaving the cemetery empty save for the remnants of the 21st.

"… So that's it then. It's finally over," Smith said, calm and collected as ever.

"I…guess it is, _ Lao Buhn_."

"And that means-?"

"It means 'Big Boss'."

"… You know what I hate?"

"Save it, ya angry bastard," Kingfisher interrupted, elbowing him in the ribs, "Our friends went to their graves with an encyclopedia's worth of things you hate. I don't think they need to hear another."

"Fair enough. So, where will you go now, Commander?"

"Ain't it obvious, Smith? The Sack Of Hammers got a transfer to a non-reject Unit, right Commander?"

"… I don't know," Blaze answered Smith, ignoring Kingfisher's assumption, "I guess…I'll find somewhere where I can…contemplate my place in this world…"

"Yeah- Wait WHAT?!" Kingfisher shouted.

"Calm down, Fisher," Blaze said softly, "And show Smith a little respect, _dohn ma_? He's your Commander now, not me."

"…" Kingfisher just stared, open-mouthed.

"We'll miss you… Commander," Slate rumbled.

"I'll miss you guys, too…" Blaze answered, turning mid-sentence to look at the graves: Not just those of her teammates, but all of the Hunters-turned-Maverick she had been forced to put down in her eleven-year hunting career. "… And…I'm sorry."

"I'm sure they forgive you, Commander," Sharp said, smiling.

"Yeah… I'm sure they do…"

"You're…leaving…the Hunters?" Kingfisher asked, still in shock.

"_Shi_," Blaze answered.

"… WHY?!" Kingfisher shouted throwing her arms around Blaze, hugging her tightly.

"_Wai_! Fisher, easy…" Blaze whispered, "Fisher, you're crushing me… _Gai si_, Fisher, let me breathe!" Blaze extended her wings, wrenching Kingfisher's grip open.

"BUT WHY?!" Kingfisher sobbed hysterically.

"… I wish I could tell you, Fisher," Blaze sighed, hugging her gently.

"Blaze, I'm sure HE forgives you too," Sharp said, still smiling pleasantly.

"_Shuh muh_?" Blaze looked over at him, worried.

"Don't worry, Commander," Smith said, pulling out a carrot and taking a bite, "We won't say anything. Right, Fisher?" Now it was Smith's turn to elbow Kingfisher.

"Hey! I'm a loud, rude bitch, but I'm not a blabber-mouth!"

"… Uh-huh. Just keep telling yourself, that, Fisher," Sharp chided.

The entire Unit burst out laughing. Even Kingfisher chuckled, after a moment of fuming.

Blaze looked around at their mirth, knowing that this was the best time to leave.

Still, she had one more apology to make…

"Sharp?"

"Yes ma'am?"

"… I'm sorry." Blaze bowed before folding her arms around Sharp's shoulders.

"Hey, I don't bare any grudges, Commander. Not against you, or against Nightshade," Sharp laughed, "Everything that happened… It's just someone else's story to me."

Blaze smiled sadly, tightening her grip just slightly, "… That's kinda what I meant."

"I'll survive. From what everyone's told me, I didn't exactly lose the best years of my life."

Blaze held him for a few more seconds before stepping back.

"Well, I guess this is goodbye, guys."

"Hey, don't be a stranger, okay Commander?" Smith called, and the entire Unit saluted.

"…" Blaze returned it, before bowing. Then she turned, spreading her wings, and deactivating her camouflage, her entire body turning bright silver.

She was in the air before her tears hit the ground.

* * *

Kattelox was a small city up on what seemed like a plateau. It was hidden away in the mountains, and sat atop an extensive network of tunnels. As a result, the town thrived on mining. Given its isolation from the rest of the world, there was also extensive artificial farming, making the town more or less completely self-sufficient. Very few reploids lived in Kattelox, as the town had been established by humans well before "Reploids" came to be. As a result, few knew of Kattelox but its residents, and as a result, it had remained safe from involvement in any of the Maverick Wars.

And this is where Blaze had found herself, after nearly running out of power above the mountain range Kattelox was nestled in.

"_Ta ma duh_…" Blaze murmured as she began to feel faint. Quickly wrapping her wings around her body, she formed a makeshift cocoon as she began to plummet to the ground, until she finally crashed in the field outside the city, smashing into the rocks.

Her armor was shattered, the pieces scattered over the field like shards of silver. Her wings too, had broken. She was missing the lower part of her right leg, her left arm was completely gone, her right hand was hanging by cables, and the side of her face was shredded. A massive tear in the side of her torso was gushing out mercury-like circulatory fluid.

"… Ouch…" was all Blaze could choke out.

* * *

"I ain't ever seen anything like it…"

"It's like it rained silver and gold here last night."

"Do you think we should collect it up?"

"No sense letting it go to waste."

"WOAH! Hey!"

"What is it?"

"This piece of silver here…it looks like a...a hand!"

"You shittin' me?"

"See for yourself!"

"Damn, that is grisly if I ever saw grisly."

"… Wait, does that mean that the rest of this stuff is-?"

"Yeah… Someone around here is hurt, or worse."

"Well, shouldn't we try and find them?"

"Yeah. Follow the size of the shards. The bigger ones wouldn't have flown as far."

"… Any truth to that?"

"Fuck if I know."

"What do you think happened?"

"Maybe some passing 'bot malfunctioned and exploded or something- Wait, I think I see something!"

"I see it too! … What the hell is it?"

"It…it looks like some kinda angel…"

"Is it dead?"

"I can't say for sure… Let's bring her back to the Shop. I don't know what we've got that could heal her, but if she is alive, she'll be better off there than out here. I'll carry her back. You load up the truck with as many pieces as you can find."

"What? It's the middle of the night! How am I supposed to find them?!"

"Well, gee, I don't know. Maybe your built-in night-vision? Moron."

* * *

Blaze screamed. She screamed louder than she had in her entire life. She screamed loud enough to wake the entire shop. She screamed so loudly that banshees would cover their ears. She screamed so loudly that her vocalizer started to short circuit.

And then she screamed again.

The mechanics came running, woken by the Blaze's howling.

"What the hell's going on?!"

"I dunno, she just woke up!"

"Why is she screaming?!"

"Probably the fact the at least 30 percent of her body is gone, moron! Miss, I know it hurts but try to calm down. We're still collecting all the bits of you from the field, and quite frankly, we don't really know how to repair you. Try to just work through the pain, okay?

Blaze's screams slowly were choked down as she grit her teeth, jaws clenched hard enough to crush titanium. Her good eye slowly cracked open, and she started to nod. This gesture, however, immediately made her seize up, tears suddenly flooding down what remained of her cheeks.

"Okay, Miss Angel. Now can you tell us how to repair you?"

Blaze tried to nod, but once again, she found her muscles were in no shape to move. The sharpness of the pain tore another shriek from her.

Or would have, had she not reached up to her neck faster than the horrendous pain could follow and torn her vocalizer from her throat. With her vocalizer removed she proceeded to scream silently.

"HOLY SHIT! Did she just-?!"

"What is she trying to do, kill herself?!"

"Wait…look."

The mechanics watched as Blaze took the lump of metal from her throat, shook the vocalizer from the outer skin, and placed the skin back over the tear in her throat. The nanites immediately bonded back to her neck, briefly assuming a mirror-like sheen, before fading back to pale silver.

"Wait a sec, if she can self-repair, why didn't it work when we tried to set the connection in her wrist?"

"She probably needs to have power to do it: she was pretty much empty when she was brought in. Call Snow, and tell him to just bring whatever they've got back here."

* * *

The collected bits and pieces Blaze had scattered over the field were being collected in a man-sized box. As soon as the box was brought in, Blaze was carefully lifted from the workbench where she had been lying and placed gently into the box. Even before the box had been brought into the room, however, the pieces had reacted to her presence, joining together with other nanite-groups from the same mechanisms. As Blaze came in contact with them, these pieces and the isolated shards of armor quickly flowed about her, reinserting themselves into her body, sealing her wounds.

As more and more of her body was restored, the blinding pain Blaze felt began to dull. Finally, she felt comfortable enough to reinsert her vocalizer. As she placed it over her neck, it seemed to pass through her skin as if it wasn't there, reconnecting itself.

Soon, she regained enough control of her systems to retract her wings and activate her chameleon circuit. She could tell that she was still silver around the areas that were missing components, armor, and/or synthetic flesh, but it was good enough. Slowly, she climbed out of the box, still a bit shaky.

As soon as her now-reattached feet hit the floor, however, she felt lightheaded and nauseous. A shiver went through her body, the same sort of chill that on a human indicated a cold sweat.

"Woah, you sure you should be up?" one of the mechanics asked, tentatively extending one of his hands in case she needed support, "You're still missing a few pieces, and you look REALLY pale."

"… How pale? I'm usually not what you'd call rosy-cheeked."

"You look pale and just a bit greenish."

Blaze took a moment to consider this. "… I must have lost a lot of circulatory fluid. I certainly feel… anemic."

"Which is kinda why I'm suggesting that you rest."

"I'll rest after I get the rest of my _feh wu_. Resting isn't going to magically grow my missing fingers back."

"You sure you don't want to wait until morning?"

"Now that I have some power, my missing pieces will naturally come to me. Just tell me where I crashed, and I'll be out of your hair," Blaze finished, but with her first step she stumbled, falling face-first on the ground.

"At least let us send an escort with you, Miss Angel. You know, in case you start feeling faint."

"… _Sheh sheh_, _da yeh_."

"Umm…" The mechanics all looked around at each other, not sure what she meant.

"Thank you, sir."

"Bolter, you were the one who found her, right? You go with her."

"Sure thing, Spectro."

"Bolter" immediately put Blaze's arm around his shoulder, allowing her to brace herself against him as they made their way over to the truck. He quickly started up the car and drove out of the garage, out through the center of town, through a small plaza containing several shops and stalls. As they passed through the outer gate, Blaze rested her head against the window, pressing her forehead against the cold glass to try and relieve her dizziness.

"So, since calling you 'Miss Angel' is probably getting annoying, do you have a name-?"

Blaze put a hand up to silence him. "Later. When I can stand up straight and my ears aren't hurt by soft noises."

"Sure thing. We're here, by the way," Bolter added, turning off the engine.

Blaze nodded faintly, then opened the door and stepped onto the field, falling to the ground almost immediately. "Please, take me to the spot where I was lying," she murmured to Bolter, who jogged over to help her. Pulling her to her feet, Bolter helped her stumble over to the the small crater she had formed when she crashed. Once she was standing on the spot, she motioned for Bolter to step back, then held out her right arm, the wrist of which was still damaged.

"You sure there's anything here-?"

Slowly, Blaze's mercury-esque circulatory fluids flowed up from the ground where they had seeped through the dirt, turning gradually redder as they rose toward Blaze's open wrist. By the time the fluid reached the wound, it was as red as human blood.

The sudden rush caused Blaze to fall to one knee, the color returning to her face quickly. As her circulatory systems reactivated, Blaze felt her power systems being brought back to full strength.

"Bolter… You should duck…_ma shong_."

No soon had Bolter hit the deck than all of the missing components scattered about the field reacted to Blaze's restored energy signature, and shot through the air from all directions towards her. Like her blood, the external pieces returned to their original color as they rejoined Blaze's body, reconnecting to the chameleon circuit.

Blaze took a moment to stretch out once she was sure all of her parts were in place.

"So, you feeling any better?"

"_Feh chun_," Blaze answered, nodding to make sure he understood. Turning up to the sky, she unfurled her wings, preparing to take off.

"You leaving?" Bolter asked.

"_Shi_. _Sheh sheh_ for helping me, sir. To you and your friends."

"Where are you headed? You must have been going somewhere pretty far away for the shortest root to take you over Kattelox."

"You know…I honestly don't know where I'm going…" Blaze turned, folding her wings, though not retracting them, "But what did you mean? Is…'Kattelox' very remote?"

"Let me put it this way, the only maps you'll find us on are sold in convenience stores in the towns we have direct trade with. And for the record, we're more or less self-sufficient, so that number is in single-digits."

"…" Blaze considered this revelation. A small city in the mountains, with little or no outside contact: this might be the place for her to spend the rest of her days. It wasn't like she had a better plan. And if it didn't work out, hell: Her wings weren't going anywhere without her.

After a long moment of contemplation, Blaze retracted her wings into her armor.

"I was going to ask you if you'd like to stay here, but I guess you're already considering the idea."

"Are you sure the rest of the town wouldn't mind having a new face around?"

"As uncommon as newcomers are, they aren't unwelcome in any way. It keeps us from getting so sick of seeing the same faces day in and day out that we end up killing each other."

Blaze's eyes widened, one eyebrow raising.

"… I'm kidding, Miss Angel- Ah yes, I asked earlier about your name."

"… So you did," Blaze answered, "… My name is…"

Blaze paused, realizing that she had no alias prepared. There was relatively little chance that revealing her true name would cause any problems, but if there was one thing she had learned in all her years as a Hunter, it was that there was no such thing as too cautious.

Finally, she answered, "…Seraphim, but you can call me Sera."

"I shoulda guessed. But isn't the short form of 'Seraphim', 'Seraph'?"

"Yes. Guess my dad didn't think that sounded feminine enough."

"I'd be inclined to agree with him. So, you have a place to stay for the night?"

"… Would you mind if I stayed in the garage?"

"Better idea: why don't you just take one of our extra rooms? The garage has built-in lodging for the mechanics, and they were built back when it took more than just four reploids to cover the entirety of Kattelox. Short form: we have extra bunks up the wazoo."

"You sure you don't mind having an armed reploid hanging around?"

"I don't see why we would. Just the sword, right?"

"… _Shi_. Again, I thank you and the other for all that you've done for me. I wish there was some way I could repay you."

"… Well, since that new mine opened up near Lake Jyun, we've had a lot more machines breaking down, not to mention the injuries to the reploid Diggers that we have to deal with, so we're kinda short handed…" Bolter mused. He then turned to Blaze, and asked, "… How much do you know about machines?"

Blaze glanced back at him, and grinned. "Not much… But I have a capacity for learning…in great detail…"

* * *

And so, Blaze has found a new home and a new job, in a currently-unknown town that will eventually become VERY important.

Yeah, I couldn't resist the _Legends _references. And just to clarify, I am aware that the _Legends _series takes place several MILLENNIA after the _X _series, but I figure they had to start somewhere.

And the "Sera" reference only occurred to me well after I chose the name, just to debunk any relationship between Blaze and the Mother Unit.

I appreciate reviews as much as ever, so don't hesitate to let me know what you think.


	18. Life

So, for those of you who had read the story previously, and have noticed some changes, I guess I should explain myself.

It would probably make more sense to do so at the beginning, but I digress.

On rereading it, I had noticed errors aplenty, no doubt resulting from my absurd habit of writing when I should have been sleeping, and slacking off when I should have been writing.

In any event, once I discovered the "Firefly / Serenity" Dictionary of Mandarin Phrases and Swears, I knew I had to open this story back up and expand Blaze's repertoire of nigh-incomprehensible exclamations, and correct the few I actually used. Naturally, this lead to some context being needed to give a rough idea of what she was saying, and then I realized that there were a whole mess of things in ENGLISH that were quite hard to follow without having author-omniscience, and just outright inconsistencies caused by the aforementioned insomnia-writing. As a result, I made edits to try and properly explain aspects of the story, and changed certain bits of characterization to give a sense of consistency. Most of these were just edits within the existing chapters, which is why I didn't see fit to post it as a whole new story.

The ending chapter was the exception. Something always seemed… off about it, particularly Blaze's regression of character, and the very Deus Ex Machina nature of it all.

So, the final chapter alone was completely rewritten, which was somewhat awkward, having been out of the game for so long. And THEN I ended up splitting it in half because of how much I had expanded it.

Let me know which ending you think was more appropriate.

So, now that that lengthy commentary is out of the way…

R, R, E, good readers. R, R, E.

Be aware that reading this chapter is a longer haul than reading anything else I've written.

By Far.

**All Characters and Fringe Sciences That Do Not Appear In Megaman Canon © Me**

**The Mechanics' Names Borrowed From Characters © My Old School Chums**

**Every Proper-Noun-Defined Aspect from Official Megaman Cannon © Capcom

* * *

**

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, COME ON! Just a few more feet, _huen dahn_! Just get me to level ground, and I'll gladly drag you the rest of the way."

In making this request of his Cheval Ride Chaser, Silver had invoked Murphy's Law. His bike's engine died on the spot, dropping to the ground and sinking its front anti-gravity generator into the dirt.

"… _Chwee ni duh_, _bu hui hen de puo fu_," Silver muttered, removing his dark sunglasses to wipe his brow, then replacing them, covering his orange eyes. Sitting down on the slope, he wondered for a moment exactly what it was he was planning to do once he dragged the Cheval into town. He had just seen the town from the bottom of the plateau, and there was no guarantee there was even a place where he could get it fixed. And even if there was, it wasn't like he had the money to pay for normal repairs, let alone the overhaul this bastard was going to need. And hell, all that was assuming he had the energy to drag the Cheval any meaningful distance. He hadn't slept or otherwise recharged in several days, and was running on empty.

It was at about this time that a black pick-up truck drove up on the nearby road. The side door was labeled "Kattelox Mechanics" in gold letters, along with a silver wrench, which even Silver, with his severely limited mechanical knowledge knew was anachronistic given the technology of the day.

"Having some mechanical trouble?" asked the driver.

"More like rotten luck. This bastard's been trying to die on me all day, and he did it just short of level ground. To spite me, I'm sure."

"Well, let's have a look. That's a Cheval, right?"

"Your eyes don't deceive you."

"Well, we got someone back at the shop who's good with military hardware," the mechanic said, crouching down to lift the front end of the Ride Chaser.

"Oh! Uh… Thanks," Silver said, deciding not to mention yet that he was completely broke. Even if he couldn't afford payment, a free ride couldn't hurt. And hell, maybe if he was lucky there would be enough GOOD parts left in the Cheval to make it worth selling. Reaching down, he grabbed the back end of the Cheval, carefully avoiding the still-red-hot exhaust pipes, and lifted it.

"So, what's your name, fella? I go by Snow."

"… Silver. My name's Silver."

"Wouldn't happen to be a nickname for the very fine leather jacket you're wearing, would it?"

"… It would, as it so happens. Only said nickname is the only name I've ever had."

After they loaded the Cheval into the back of the truck, they both climbed into the truck and started into town.

"So, Silver. Where are you from?"

"Lots of different places."

"Wanderer, huh? And this Cheval's been with you for the duration?"

"Hardly. I just picked it up at a military surplus store on the cheap. I very quickly found out WHY it was so cheap," Silver scowled bitterly, remembering how in hindsight he should have suspected that he was being ripped off.

"Oh well. The girl we have back at the shop will have her fixed up, no problem. Kid's a mechanical prodigy, I kid you not."

"I don't doubt it. But she BETTER be a genius if she wants a snowball's chance in hell of fixing that…THING I very briefly called 'transportation', before I found that other, more crude names were more applicable."

* * *

A few years prior, people would have been concerned to see a girl in a mechanic's jumpsuit and a vaguely matching cap, perched on the very edge of the shop roof, rocking back and forth whimsically; the first thought would have been "Crazy"; the second would have been "Suicide Risk".

Blaze, or "Sera" as she had come to be known, was neither crazy, nor a suicide risk, though if you asked her about the former, she would answer in the affirmative.

"But then, that's nothing new," she mused, "For me, non-crazy is five minutes in a dark room just before a bear tears off your leg. But that's past…"

Looking up at the sky, she murmured, "… So long past…"

As a flock of pigeons flew by, she shrugged, "But then, maybe seven years only SEEMS like a long time because I'm only eighteen. Maybe after I've lived a hundred years or so, a seven year stretch will start feeling like nothing at all…" She was only half-kidding: Reploids had the potential to outlive humans with ease, and Blaze was essentially invulnerable. Add to that the fact that her new form came with an immeasurable extension to her longevity, and she had a recipe for living a very, very long time.

"… But then, has a reploid ever actually died from 'natural' causes?" Blaze wondered aloud, "Given the advancement of technology, it seems unlikely that ANY reploid could break down and die without it being intentional on SOMEONE'S part…"

And this was, as far as she knew, right on the money. Of course, a few reploids HAD died in accidents not involving combat, but those were few and far between, especially since even non-combat reploids were typically strong and/or fast enough to avoid critical injury in such scenarios. For the most part, reploids died as a direct, or at least indirect result of combat…

"… Which doesn't speak well of the fate of the reploid species," Blaze sighed, "And lucky me, I most likely get to see it all…"

Her musing on reploid mortality was ended by the sound of Snow's truck driving up the road. Tilting her cap up, she watched as the truck turned the corner, and engaged her scanner to see what it was that Snow was bringing in.

"A Cheval Ride Chaser?" Blaze was mildly surprised by this, since last she had checked, Cheval's were military-only. The machine had been stripped of weapons, and its armor was well below combat grade, though, so maybe the Hunters had finally started phasing the Cheval out entirely in favor of the Adion. This would of course leave a bunch of perfectly good Chevals in junkyards, or stripped down and sold off.

"Well, I guess it doesn't matter where he got it, because the thing is broken as all _guai_, and I know EXACTLY who Spectro is going to tell to fix it," Blaze grinned, dropping off the edge of the roof, catching the gutter and gently slipping through the window of her quarters, grabbing a pair of thick black sunglasses from the top of the dresser.

"Time to go to work, 'Sera'."

* * *

Silver was surprised that a town full of such old buildings was still standing. Some of them were even still built of brick and mortar, a building technique which had gone out of practice even before the birth of Reploids.

"So Silver, where were you headed that brought you past Kattelox? We aren't exactly nearby any centers of civilization. Which isn't to say that we're a bunch of savages, but still, we're a long way from Abel City."

"… It's as you put it earlier: I'm a wanderer, and I suppose I felt like seeing the mountains," came Silver's somewhat hesitant response. It was in the strictest sense, true: Silver WAS a wanderer, and if asked about the mountains, his first response would have been, "They're probably nice this time of year."

It also had nothing to do with why he was in the mountains. But then, when your reason was fueled only by a recurring dream, you tended not to tell complete strangers.

As the truck pulled up to the shop, Silver saw a building that looked like a strong breeze could bring it crashing to the ground; the paint was peeling off of the walls, the shingled roof was bare in places and outright broken in others.

"Snow, I don't mean this in any ungrateful sort of way, but…this place is a dump."

"Yeah, it is, that. Still, while the building ain't much, the tools work, at least."

"Uh huh. Well, I should probably tell you that I don't-"

"We can talk details once we get your ride into the garage," Snow interrupted, getting out of the truck and jumping into the back to pick up the Cheval.

"… Yeah. Sure. Why not?" Silver mumbled, following suit.

"Ready? One, two, three, HEAVE!" Snow shouted, as Silver helped him haul the Cheval out of the truck and onto solid ground. "So Silver, you were saying something about-?"

Silver was about to answer when he was cut off by a voice from the front door.

"By any chance was it about selling us that hunk of _go se_ so we could scrap it for parts?" the source of the voice spoke as it exited the front door.

The first thing Silver noticed about her was that she was short. Silver himself wasn't tall, but he had to question the practicality of building a reploid as short as this girl was, assuming she WAS a reploid. She was also slight of frame, if the way the jumpsuit seemed baggy on her was any indication. She was wearing a cap with the shop's wrench logo on it, under which she appeared to have tied her black hair. The brim was pulled low, presumably to cover her eyes, which seemed redundant, since she also wore dark sunglasses.

"Actually, that was one of the things-" Silver knew he'd be cut off before he even started speaking.

"Dammit Sera! You are not allowed to use Chinese to insult a customer's property, even if we can't understand it!"

"Uh, I actually know how to speak-"

"Relax, Snow. It's all in good fun," the girl, "Sera", said coolly, "By the way, I fixed the Mounted Cutting Laser early, so Spectro wanted me to tell you to use your smooth talking to try and score us a tip for the job."

After a moment, she added, "You know, when you deliver it to the client."

"Okay, okay. I know when I'm not wanted. Jeez, sometimes I think I shoulda just left you in Cardon where I found you."

"Bolter would never have let you. Besides, Snow. I thought you were the compassionate brother, and Bolter was the smart one. As evidenced by helping a guy who looks as though he has less money than I have good manners."

"Hey, looks can be deceiving," Snow said as he hooked one end of a tow chain to what appeared to be a tractor with a rotating laser cannon on the front, and the other end onto the back of the truck, "Silver here is a good fellow. He would have mentioned any destitution up front."

"Well, you are the good judge of people, Snow," Sera said flatly, making it hard for Silver to tell whether or not she was being sarcastic, "Bye now."

"Later," Snow said, hopping into the driver's seat of the truck. As the truck pulled away, Sera turned to Silver.

"You're completely broke, aren't you?"

"How'd you know?" Silver asked, already not liking how much this "Sera" knew.

"Did you spend money on that thing? On purpose?"

"… Yes."

"Thought so. I can tell by the amount of rust around the exhaust that this thing spent a good while without being used. Which means you just bought it in at least a similar condition to this. And nobody who has the money to afford options would do that on purpose."

"… That's about right." Silver already didn't like her.

"So…I guess if you want this _feh wu_ up and running again I should get to work."

"Ye- Wait, what?" He couldn't have heard that right. "Aren't you forgetting the part where I'm broke?"

"Isn't my problem. Spectro will probably have more than a few unkind words to say about it, and Snow will probably not enjoy being wrong about you, but it won't put me _luhn gohn_."

"Um… I don't understand what that means but thanks-"

"Yes you do, Mr. Silver. 'Uh, I actually know how to speak-' is a sentence that can only end a few different ways in the context of the conversation."

"… No offense, but you are possibly the second most annoying person I have ever met. But _sheh sheh_, anyway."

* * *

Blaze had maintained her cool, but she was actually keenly interested to know where Silver had learned Mandarin, despite not having a particularly Asian appearance about him. She had immediately pegged him as a reploid, which made his lack of even rudimentary armor unusual. Normally, the only time when a reploid went without armor was when they wanted to hide the fact that they were a reploid.

Not unlike herself, she reflected. She had even utilized her camouflage to remove the fiery streaks and patches from her hair, and since the mass of nanites that made up her armor was too large to hide within her body, she had configured it into a series of long, microscopic threads extending from her body. It worked pretty well, as all anyone ever noticed, if anything, was a slight haziness surrounding her, not unlike a heat mirage.

"So," she said as she walked over to the Cheval and lifted it up, bracing it against her back, "if I'm the second, who's the most annoying person you've ever met?"

"That would be the angel that keeps leading me about without any hint as to where it's taking me," Silver laughed.

As soon as the word "angel" was out of his mouth, Blaze subconsciously dredged up the memory of Kingfisher saying she looked like "some kind of angel".

"… What did this angel look like?" Blaze asked after a moment, turning to face him.

* * *

Silver was dumbstruck. While he had expected her to think he was joking, Sera had just asked him, with a straight face, what the angel had looked like. He was quite frankly so shocked that it made her ability to carry the Cheval by herself, with seemingly greater ease than he had had with Snow's assistance, unsurprising by comparison.

"… Honestly, it's only appeared to me in dreams, and I've never gotten a clear look."

"… I see," Sera almost seemed relieved by the answer, but then she asked, almost sounding hopeful, "About how long have you been having this dream for?"

"… All my life. Why? You know something about angels that isn't in the books?"

"… _Fu_. I was just curious is all."

"I find that hard to believe. By the way, do you need a hand with that?" Silver asked, deciding not to pursue the subject.

"I'm good," she answered, starting again towards the garage.

"If you're sure…"

"I am, _sheh sheh_."

So Silver followed Sera into the garage, still amazed that she was able to carry the Cheval and maintain such a brisk pace. As she set the machine down, she reached over to a toolbox that Silver was sure hadn't been there a few moments ago, and began rummaging through it.

"So," she asked, still digging through the tools, "If you've only met this angel in your dreams, can you really say you've met… Him? Her? It?"

"Her, if you must know. Or at least I think she's female. As I've said, I've never gotten a clear look. And why are you arguing against me having met the Angel? If your argument is valid, that makes YOU the most annoying person I've ever met. As in, more annoying than the guy who ripped me off for this _feh wu_."

"And yet you continue to sit here, talking to me, rather than leaving me to my work. Why is that?"

* * *

Blaze hadn't had trouble convincing Snow to leave. After all, the mechanics had learned very quickly that she liked to be alone when she was working. The reason behind that was the way in which she worked. Over the past seven years, she had worked on expanding her ability to manipulate her amorphic qualities, and had reached a point where she could in fact create small drones from her body.

In fact, she had already deployed a small one into the Cheval as she had been carrying it, and another one, using her camouflage, to get her tools.

Still, until Silver left, she wasn't going to be able to cut loose on this thing and give it the repairs it really needed: As loath as she was to admit it, fixing things with just two hands, taking it apart to get to the interior, was beyond her level of patience.

But she saw that she was going to have to resort to it, if her attempts to annoy Silver away, at least temporarily, didn't work soon.

"I'm broke, remember? What am I gonna do in town with no money?"

"Parks are free to all," Blaze said flatly, finally taking out a wrench and opening up a side panel on the Cheval. "_Gai si_, did you KICK this thing?"

"Once or twice, yeah."

"You're lucky you aren't in tiny pieces right now. Cheval's are notoriously combustible. One shot, one KICK in the wrong place, and the thing becomes a HE Missile waiting to happen," she ranted, almost manically.

"… I see. Snow wasn't kidding: You DO know your military hardware."

"Chalk it up to experience- _ai ya_!" Blaze swore under her breath. That was a smart thing to say: She might as well have just told him straight up that she was an ex-Maverick Hunter, which was something she preferred to keep private, especially since it was entirely possible that in the seven years since she had left, the Hunters had come under new management, and it was not unreasonable to assume that the new head honchos might not be as willing to let her run free as Signas had been.

"Experience, huh? You get a lot of military surplus around here?"

"… More than you might think. That laser I sent with Snow? Old military model with a downgraded generator," Blaze said, trying to keep her cool.

"Well, as you may have gathered, I don't know much about machines. Hence, the rusted _ri shao gou shi bing_ you're working on."

Blaze chuckled, but was inwardly sighing with relief that Silver had bought her story. The laser had been designed for mining, and had never once seen military application, except possibly by some civilian militia in a remote corner of the world.

* * *

Silver had a feeling that Sera wasn't being entirely truthful as to the source of her military tech know-how, but he was in no position to suggest otherwise. Besides, if Sera had a history she wanted hidden, well, that was her business. Besides, she was doing him a favor, repairing his Ride Chaser essentially for free, and possibly incurring the wrath of her employers and/or coworkers.

"Say, Sera?" Silver asked, sitting down and leaning back against the garage wall, "Did I thank you for doing this for me?"

"You know, for someone who considers me so annoying, you'd think you'd be less inclined to initiate conversation with me, your apparent inability to leave the garage notwithstanding."

"As annoying as I find you, what with your bluntness, abrasiveness, and a bunch of other words that essentially mean the same thing, this is by far the most interesting conversation I have ever had."

"… How boring is your life? I mean, REALLY?"

Very boring, now that Silver thought about it, but he wasn't going to tell her that.

"What can I say? I'm a man of few words."

"Then could you please act like it? I need to concentrate."

"_Guai_, if you can name a place in town that'll let me sleep for free, I'll leave."

"…" Sera said nothing, just stood up from the Cheval, walked over, grabbed his sleeve, and pulled him through a door at the back of the garage, through what appeared to be a living room and a kitchen, up a flight of stairs, and down a short hallway until they reached the third door on the left.

Sera opened the door and pulled Silver inside, before finally releasing his sleeve to grab a large towel and spread it over the bed.

"If you promise to stay out of the garage for at least an hour, you can sleep here. Just sleep on top of the towel: I am very obsessive about the cleanliness of my bedding. And again, in case this part wasnt clear, stay out of the garage."

"… Would it be easier if I just stayed in one of the empty rooms?" Silver asked, still flabbergasted.

"Not unless you feel like sleeping in a pile of dust," Sera called, already heading back downstairs, "Besides, it's possible some of the unused rooms have stuff living in them. And I'm not kidding about that: when they first cleared out a room for me, there was an entire family of badgers living in the mattress."

Blaze explained after a moment of awkward silence, "It makes about as much sense as you think, but it's the truth."

"… Right then."

Silver sat down on the towel and looked around the room. It was almost completely empty of personal effects save for a katana of white crystal, or rather the blade of a katana, laid out across the top of a very plain dresser.

"Huh… Maybe she really is just a military buff. I didn't think old weapons like this had a place on the battlefield these days. And that looks like a decorative piece if I ever saw one. _Guai_, the thing doesn't even have a handle…" Silver mused as he lay back, his fatigue from traveling finally catching up with him. Folding his hands under his head, he closed his eyes.

And again, he saw that damn angel.

* * *

"Finally," Blaze muttered under her breath as she closed the door to the garage behind her. Returning to the Cheval, her arms assumed a silvery sheen, and began to form multiple manipulation armatures, each equipped with various tools. Removing the casing from the Cheval, she snaked her arms into the machine, going to work on the various faults in it. As she worked, the drone emerged from the machine and re-assimilated itself into her leg.

At the rate she was working at, she would finish the machine in about fifteen minutes. Still, the fastest the work could be plausibly be done by a normal reploid, which she imagined Silver had incorrectly identified her as by this point, was about an hour, which would leave her with a solid forty-five minutes to kill after she was done.

"Maybe I should get something to eat. I am a little…hungry…" Blaze trailed off as she sensed someone outside the garage. It had been a long time since anyone had triggered her threat detector, since that would require an individual to be, well, a threat. Such was a rarity in these parts.

Which was to say it had never ever happened in Kattelox.

Curious, she materialized her revolver inside of her sleeve, and walked to the garage door, reaching down and pulling it up.

She found herself face-to-face with a horse reploid who she immediately felt she knew. She didn't know where from, but wherever she had seen or met him, bad things had gone down. And yet she couldn't remember where she had seen him. Perhaps it was the patches of gunmetal gray metal that covered, no, COMPRISED parts of his face and torso, distorting his appearance. And yet, even those seemed familiar, albeit in a different way.

He stared back, just as surprised, and it seemed he was even a little frightened.

"… Do I know you?" Blaze asked.

"… Nightshade?" the Horse reploid asked back, ignoring her question entirely.

And then it all came rushing back. The memories she had suppressed for the last seven years flooded into her mind.

Her father's lab.

The alarms.

The darkness.

And three Mavericks.

"… YOU!" Blaze snarled, dropping her revolver from her sleeve into her waiting palm, immediately opening fire on the Maverick.

Equine immediately turned and ran from Blaze through the forest, proving that the descriptor "Mach" was not without basis.

As Equine ran, Blaze scanned his oversized dash thrusters. They weren't too much more efficient than her own, but they did have an advanced cooling system, allowing them to run hotter for longer. Absorbing her revolver back into her body, her entire body turned silver. She tossed her cap and sunglasses aside, letting her hair fall. Her dimly shining eyes began to burn an amber color, and her jumpsuit was shredded as overlapping and interlocking plates of armor grew over her body, more resembling Nightshade's full-body armor than her original, minimalist defenses. Finally, silver frames sprouted from the back of her torso armor, and were filled out by golden crystal "feathers". Spreading them wide, she gave chase to the fleeing Maverick.

Equine turned to see if she was giving pursuit, only to see nothing. Still flying at top speed, he suddenly felt a hand grasp his shoulder, spinning him back around to face front, and for an instant saw Blaze glaring at him.

"Nightshade… Please, I was just following orders!" Equine whimpered, "… Nightshade?" he asked when he saw she wasn't reacting.

Blaze only answered him with a barrage of plasma fire, punching several holes into Equine's body, and sending him hurtling back into the nearest tree. As she stared at the deceased Maverick, however, she saw that more of the gray metal was forming up over the portions of his body she had just blasted.

"Nightshade…" She murmured, realizing why the surfaces of gunmetal gray had seemed familiar.

While she was stunned by the revelation, Equine was back on his feet and running, off the nearest edge of the plateau.

After a moment, Blaze realized her entire body was shuddering. Inhaling deeply, she tried to calm her nerves, to no avail.

"Okay, Blaze. Be cool about this. Those gray patches of metal were obviously nanites used to repair severe wounds, most likely inflicted by Nightshade seven years ago when he destroyed that Maverick Lab. And if Equine survived the ordeal, then it's just as likely that the other two had also survived. And Equine mentioned orders…"

Blaze activated her camouflage, taking to the sky, picking up Equine's intense heat signature immediately.

* * *

"Alright… We've finally found him. After all these years, we've finally tracked down our creation!"

"… I still don't like this, Doc."

"Yeah, remember what happened to us LAST TIME?!"

"And you designed him to get stronger and stronger right? Well he's had several YEARS to do just that!"

"Quiet, all of you! We're ready for him this time, or did you not remember the fail-safes that kept us all alive last time? We have the same technology that makes him immortal inside of US. We'll be fine. Plus, we have the device to use against him, once Equine lures him here."

"Even disregarding the horrendous, horrendous ass-kicking he dealt us last time, how could he be here and not have killed everyone? Wasn't the original problem the fact that he went omnicidal rather than just genocidal?"

"There was obviously something wrong with him. Now quit worrying. I BUILT Nightshade, I can DESTROY him."

"I'll believe it when I see it, Doc."

"And see it you will, fool."

* * *

Silver was woken by the sound of plasma fire coming from downstairs. Immediately leaping to his feet, he bolted downstairs, running into Snow, who was just getting out of the truck.

"What the hell happened here?" Snow asked.

"I don't know. I heard shots fired," Silver answered.

"Well, that explains the plasma burns outside-"

"Is someone shooting up my garage?!" another reploid shouted, crashing through the door to the office.

"Looks that way, Spectro," Snow answered him.

"Was it this guy?" Spectro gestured toward Silver, eyes narrowed.

"No. Silver here's a customer. I had Sera working on his Cheval," Snow answered, pointing at the Ride Chaser."

"… And where IS Sera?"

"Hey boss, what the hell is going on?!" shouted yet another mechanic from the doorway to the living area.

"Yeah, I'm trying to sleep here!" came the voice of a fourth from the door to the dorms.

"Bolter, somebody has been shooting guns in my house. Razor, shut up, you're on call anyway: I ain't paying you to sleep. Also, Sera's gone missing."

"Hey Spectro. Have a look at this…" Snow said, examining a pile of scraps.

Silver recognized them immediately. "That looks like a shredded jumpsuit…" As he looked out at the plasma burns on the trees across the road, he was able to put two and two together. "If I may, I think that Sera was the one doing the shooting. It looks like she opened the door, saw someone there that she didn't like or who threatened her in some way, and she either opened fire or returned fire. The jumpsuit doesn't appear to have any burns on it, which most likely means she tore it off herself. And, since she's no longer here, I'm going to guess she gave chase. Do we have any weapons?"

There was a moment of stunned silence, which Razor finally broke, asking:

"… Who the hell is this guy?"

"I'll take that as a no," Silver muttered to himself, walking over to his Cheval. Hopefully, Sera had at least gotten the engine running before she ran into whoever she had gotten in a fight with. As he got on, though, he stopped. If Sera really did have some sort of plasma weapon, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to assume that her sword was in fact a weapon, despite its ornateness and lack-of-handle. Dashing back upstairs, he tore one of the sleeves off of his jacket, then ripped a long thin strip out of it as he threw open the door to Sera's room and grabbed her sword off of the dresser.

As soon as it touched his hands, however, it began to glow a faint purple color. Ignoring how unusual it was for a weapon with no visible power source to do that, Silver threaded the leather strap through the hole in the top of the blade's tang, knotted it, and began to wrap it around the long, thick tang into a makeshift grip. Taking a few test swings, Silver grinned, and the blade flashed yellow, and then began to glow a steady orange.

"I can't believe I'm doing this for her…" Silver scowled, returning to the garage, grabbing a piece of the Cheval's plating off the floor, tossing it into the air, then chopping it in half as a last minute test of the sword's combat-readiness. Hopping onto his Cheval, he started it up, and rode out of the garage.

"Hey! HEY! Did he pay for the repairs yet?!" Silver heard Spectro shouting after him.

* * *

Blaze kept her cloak activated as she followed Equine off the plateau into the woods below. As Equine began to slow, she followed suit, quietly so as to remain hidden.

"Alright you _go neong yung duh_, let's who you're taking…orders…from…" Blaze choked when she saw Equine hurriedly explaining the situation.

Including Equine, the three Mavericks who had killed her and her father 18 years ago were right in front of her, alive and presumably kicking. And there was a fourth one among them, a strange sort of stone mash-up of various animals, with what appeared to be magma burning within him. All four save the gargoyle, however, were covered in patches of dark metal.

Blaze felt true fury rising in her gut as it hadn't since the final battle with Nightshade.

"So what you're telling me, is that Nightshade, whom we designed as the ultimate killing machine, is working as a MECHANIC? And has taken the form of a five foot tall girl?" the Gargoyle was saying, one eyebrow raised.

"YES!" Equine practically screamed, "That is EXACTLY what I'm fucking telling you-!"

"While your friend needs to get his facts straight, he is doing one thing right," Blaze growled, deciding that this would be a good time to announce her presence, "He's fearing me. And you should be doing the same, right about now." Stepping out into the small clearing, she deactivated her cloak, revealing herself in all her shiny glory.

"OH FUCK! IT'S HIM!" shouted Ursa.

"Nightshade?! You've…changed, significantly…" Gargoyle said softly, obviously trying to seem non-confrontational, "Did I neglect to specify a gender when I programmed you? Or is this merely the result of your evolutionary program?"

"None of the above, _fang pi_… Nightshade is dead. Has been for the last seven years."

"What?!"

"And you're looking at the one who killed him."

Gargoyle stared at her for a moment, and then began to laugh. "Oh, that's very clever, Nightshade. Trying to throw us off your trail, eh? You must realize that as your creator, I know everything about you. Did you think I wouldn't recognize your energy signature, even with the modifications you've made?"

"Ursa should recognize me," Blaze glared at the massive bear Maverick, "Isn't that right Ursa?" Her voice was a whisper, but never before had she spoken with such venom, "Look into my eyes. You should know them pretty well. After all, you gouged one of them out once." Now her voice grew stronger, gaining volume to match her rage, "Or have you forgotten torturing me to death all those years ago? When you and your friends murdered my father and stole his nanobot research for this _ta ma duh_?"

Ursa's eyes went wide, "… No fucking way…"

Blaze snarled, her golden eyes glowing like the sun itself, "You didn't think it was possible that Dad, a famous nanobots researcher, might have used some of his nanobot technology on me, his ONLY CREATION?!"

"… So, even after all the punishment I dished out to you, you still survived. I guess I didn't give you enough credit, pipsqueak!" Ursa laughed, his confidence returning now that he knew he wouldn't have to fight Nightshade.

"Yikes! If it weren't for the eyes, I wouldn't have recognized you at all!" cackled Jackrabbit. "You changed a lot, kid. Into a badass, if I may."

"You all have changed a lot too. You look almost as bad as when I found your head sitting in the wreckage of your old lab," she replied, pointing at Ursa.

"As ugly as it has made us, we came here prepared to face the being we THOUGHT was Nightshade. That it was not makes little difference. And since you AREN'T Nightshade, we don't have to worry about taking you alive," Gargoyle grinned.

Equine, however, had experienced her wrath firsthand, and knew that even if she wasn't Nightshade, she had somehow gained the same powers, and that right now, his best bet was to run. However, as he spun around and blasted off full-speed…

He ran straight into Blaze, who thrust her arm clear through his chest plate and stopped him dead in his tracks.

After digging around inside for a moment, causing Equine horrendous pain, she ripped out his nanite-covered control chip and held it in front of him. After enjoying the panicked look on his face for a moment, she unloaded a blast of plasma into it before crushing it in her fist. The nanites instantly melted away from Equine's body, leaving him missing various body parts, including much of his chest and skull.

"Do you think simply being able to regenerate is going to be enough to beat me? Were you not listening when I told you I killed Nightshade? Next to him, you four will be cakewalk. In fact," Blaze growled, her words becoming faster as she grew more and more worked up, "I could kill all four of you right now. Luckily for you, that wouldn't satisfy my rather severe need for revenge. So bring it on, fucker."

"… KILL HER!" Gargoyle shouted, his inner fire raging out of control as he leapt to the fray. Ursa and Jackrabbit charged as well, but their confidence had obviously been damaged by Blaze's brutal dispatch of their horse-like comrade.

Gargoyle reached Blaze first, and attacked with fiery hand strikes. Combat was not his forte however, and as strong as the blows were, Blaze blocked them with ease, dropping beneath the last hook, grabbing Gargoyle's arm, and hurling him over her shoulder. Ursa managed to get behind her while she was throwing Gargoyle, but she sensed his approach, dissolving into a silvery mist which Ursa passed clear through as he aimed a mighty paw swipe at her head. He looked around for a moment before realizing Blaze had re-materialized behind him, but before he could turn, Blaze unloaded a blast of raw plasma into his back, hurling him forward and dropping him face-first on the ground. Jackrabbit finally caught up, leaping and kicking with the power of both his legs, striking Blaze in the chest. Blaze simply rolled with the kick, backflipping away from Jackrabbit.

Gargoyle was back on his feet, and ran at Blaze in a ball of flame as Jackrabbit generated a blade of dark energy in his hand and rushed her from the other side. Blaze leapt up, driving her left heel up into Jackrabbit's jaw, launching herself into a spin towards Gargoyle, whom she crescent-kicked with her right foot. As she landed, she launched Gargoyle away with a double palm strike, smashing his stony skin. Without even having to face him, she knew that Jackrabbit was hurling the large blade of shadow he had formed at her, and she extended her palm toward it, a plate of gold crystal extending from her palm, which the dark mass seemed to shatter against. As the shield evaporated, a bolt of gold plasma shot through the air it had just occupied, striking Jackrabbit in the chest, and launching him into the air. He was still sparking as he hit the ground, despite the short duration of the blast.

Ursa was next up to the plate, attempting another sneak attack, not yet having realized that this strategy wasn't working. For this, he got both of Blaze's heels into his gut as she dropped to her hands with a mule kick, before following the force back up and unloading brutal stream of faster and faster spin kicks, which culminated in a cyclone spin with her wings extended, the razor-like edges cutting him deeply, as well as dispersing the beams of fire and shadow that Gargoyle and Magma fired at her, respectively.

Rebounding off of Ursa, Blaze landed softly, roughly equidistant from each of the Mavericks, and gold energy began to crackle through both her arms and along the metal frames of her wings, as the latter retracted their gold feathers and began to morph into three-pronged cannons.

"Okay, fuckers… Now you're _wong dahn_! This is for my dad, my team, Nightshade, and ME! _CHIU SE_!!!" Blaze screamed as she unleashed a wave of branching gold light into her enemies.

And that's when it started to go wrong.

While Ursa and Jackrabbit were frying just as badly as she'd intended, Gargoyle wasn't reacting to the blast as negatively as she'd hoped. He was still hurting, but it wasn't the "death throes" agony she'd meant to put him in. Was he more immune to electromagnetic damage than his underlings? Well, then she'd just have to see how much heat he could REALLY take, and she spun, directing one wing blast each at Ursa and Jackrabbit while she focused both her arm cannons on Gargoyle.

And then she saw he was smiling.

"_Jao gao_…" she hissed, realizing what was going on. She tried to redirect all her energy towards Ursa and Jackrabbit, to kill them quickly and leave her to focus entirely on Gargoyle, but as Gargoyle himself was quick to point out…

"Too late, little girl."

His stomach turned molten for a moment, and he reached inside and withdrew a small device, and Blaze immediately saw that all of her energy was draining into it. No, it was actively SEEKING her energy and consuming it: Even as her own energy waves retreated, the device sent out its own to maintain contact.

Blaze suddenly began to feel faint. She could no longer sustain the surges on Jackrabbit or Ursa.

"… _Yu bun duh_…" Blaze cursed her own shortsightedness as she felt her life force draining through her arms. It wasn't painful, but she knew what came next.

"Not to toot my own horn, but I am one brilliant motherfucker," Gargoyle gloated. "Not just in developing the device, of course. I knew that once Nightshade learned of our nanite enhancement, he wouldn't bother with the rage virus, or any of his conventional weapons, and that the Generator Wave would be his trump card against us. The brilliant part was hiding the device somewhere not just where he couldn't scan, but where he would EXPECT to be unable to scan."

"…" Blaze had to concede that it WAS brilliant. Gargoyle possessed, like so many other "magma-element" reploids, a core comprised of a specific version of "Devil-Type" nanites, allowing them to manifest the ability to "melt" and "solidify" as a form of attack or evasion. Thus, Blaze hadn't thought anything was out of the ordinary when she had only seen a solid mass of energy in her scanners.

"But here comes the best part," Gargoyle grinned. "You see, this device is in fact a version of the generator that Nightshade and, apparently, you possess."

"… _Tzao gao_," Blaze knew where this was headed.

"It would have been all well and good to drain Nightshade's batteries, but he would eventually have regained enough power to begin his attack once again. So we needed to stun him. And the best weapon for that… Well, I'm sure you already know, since you just tried to use it against us…"

"… Oh, _go se_…" Blaze had time to curse before crimson plasma shot through her system.

But she wouldn't scream. Not now. Not for these fuckers.

It wasn't easy, though. The damage being done to her system, combined with her own nearly depleted generator, was making it difficult just to maintain her structural form, let alone control over her mental impulses.

Suddenly, a Cheval Ride Chaser with most of its outer plating stripped and a very large dent made in the fuel tank came screaming out of the woods, smashing into Gargoyle, and exploding brightly, consuming both the Maverick doctor and his device.

"What in the hell-?!" Jackrabbit turned, but didn't even get a chance to see who it was that held the blade that passed through his body several times, reducing him to a pile of synthetic body parts.

Blaze, severely weakened, managed to look up, and was surprised to see Silver, looking very, VERY pissed off. In his right hand was a long crystal katana blade that had a long leather strip wrapped into a moderately thick grip around the blade's tang. The blade was currently flashing a very angry shade of red. Blaze was surprised, as she was sure that the sword only reacted to her, and only when it was in her hand. Then again, she hadn't exactly let others hold her sword freely before, so maybe she'd just never had opportunity to see it.

"Well, it seems I got here just in the nick of time. What's that make me then?" Silver said, resting the red blade on his shoulders.

"Huh," Gargoyle snorted as he reformed himself, unconcerned by the arrival of the newcomer, "Look a what we have here, guys. A big, damn hero."

"Ain't I just?" Silver grinned murderously.

* * *

Silver was driving the Cheval, praying that it would keep going, unsure of where he should be going. He figured that if Sera's opponent had run, then he would have left town by the shortest route, in order to avoid drawing attention to himself.

Unfortunately, it was getting dark, and the forest around the plateau was thick. Hell, if Sera had pursued her foe off the OTHER side of the plateau, then there was a good chance he'd never catch up.

"And what the hell am I planning to do when I get there? Sera's probably got it covered anyway, and the last thing she'd need in that case is an unarmored guy who is sorely lacking in any kind of combat experience."

Silver knew he was underestimating himself, as he was both fast and tough. There were only two things that kept him from being registered as a combat reploid; One, he lacked any kind of onboard weaponry or combat-grade armor, or any armor at all unless one counted the clothes on his back; Two, he wasn't registered at all.

Still, his point stood. And yet, as soon as he had realized Sera was gone, he had felt he should go after her, if only to repay her for fixing his bike for free.

Suddenly, he heard someone or something scream, and as his eyes turned to focus on the source, he saw a flash of gold light within the trees.

Immediately Silver gunned the engine, screaming down the steep incline, weaving in and out of the trees. As he shot through the forest, he heard the battle continuing, and the sounds seemed to grow louder. Suddenly, the whole forest seemed to fill with gold light, accompanied by the sound of lightning. As he pulled up to a stop, however, the golden glow was replaced by a dimmer crimson glow.

Looking through the trees, he saw a strange gargoyle-esque reploid holding some sort of device, which was blasting crimson lightning into a silver reploid with two cannons coming out of her back. He could only assume this was Sera as she was about the right height. Other than that, however, it was hard to tell that she was the same reploid, especially since Sera had been wearing a cap and large, dark sunglasses.

Still, what really struck him as odd was the intense anger he felt as soon as he laid eyes on the gargoyle. It wasn't just anger that he was hurting Sera, but instead it was a more personal loathing. And the black rabbit Maverick and the brown bear Maverick elicited the same feelings, albeit to lesser degrees.

Hopping off of his Cheval, he remember Sera's words about the Ride Chaser's instability. Lining up the Chaser with the gargoyle, he gave the fuel tank a swift kick, denting it, and causing some fuel to leak out.

Gunning the engine so hard that the handle snapped off, he sent the Cheval screaming out of the trees into the gargoyle's face. Then he stepped out of the trees himself, and walked up to the rabbit and, without breaking stride, sliced him to pieces.

"Well, it seems I got here just in the nick of time. What's that make me then?"

"Huh," The gargoyle answered, "Look a what we have here, guys. A big, damn hero."

"Ain't I just?"

"Well, I suppose we ought to welcome the hero… properly. Ursa! Kill the bitch! I'll deal with this interloper! Jackrabbit! When you're done reforming, help Ursa!"

Silver glanced at Sera, who was getting back to her feet now that she was no longer under assault from the lightning, then leapt at Gargoyle.

* * *

Blaze slowly rose to her feet, still weak. Looking around her, she saw Silver engaging Gargoyle, the small fragments of Jackrabbit, who was trying to reassemble himself, and Ursa, who was slowly advancing on her, cracking his knuckles.

Immediately, she unloaded a blast of plasma at Jackrabbit. It was considerably weaker than normal, but due to the fragmentation of Jackrabbit's body, the overload set in far quicker than normal, obliterating his programming from the nanites, leaving them a blank, gray blob with the few remaining bits of his original body floating about in it.

She then turned to Ursa who laughed, "Well, doesn't this seem familiar? I guess some things never change. Let's see how much I can make you scream THIS TIME!"

Timed seemed to slow, however and Ursa watched in horror as, rather than cowering in fear, his target simply lunged at him, uppercutting him in the face and launching him into the air. He crashed down to the ground, hard.

Snarling, Blaze shouted, "You're right, Ursa. It DOES seem familiar! You should have stayed dead, you _ta ma duh_, because this time, YOU'RE THE ONE WHO'S GONNA SCREAM!"

Ursa stared at her, sheer terror consuming him as he realized the tables had been turned, and he scrambled to his feet to try and run.

He wasn't even able to turn away before Blaze speared her fingers into his eyes with a snake-fang strike. Grabbing his face, fingers still embedded in his eye sockets, she punched her other hand into his abdomen, grabbing whatever was inside, and, using all of her might, lifted the massive bear Maverick above her head, and began to pour ALL of her energy into him.

For the first and last time in his life, Ursa screamed in true, unequivocal agony.

And then his body was vaporized by the intense heat Blaze's attack had generated. Not incinerated; not disintegrated; VAPORIZED.

Blaze dropped to the ground, her body aching and her vision blurring, but was thoroughly satisfied with her revenge. Then, through the haze of drowsiness, she remembered there was one more enemy to deal with. As she turned to attack Gargoyle, however, she nearly collapsed.

"… S-sorry…S-Silver… B-but…y-you're…o-on your…o-own…" she murmured before slipping into unconsciousness.

* * *

Silver raised his sword up to guard against Gargoyle's next punch, but his burning fist seemed to simply flow around the blade, colliding with his face and burning him, sending him flying. Amazingly, his sunglasses stayed in place.

The fight was not going Silver's way. Gargoyle was still in just as strong a shape as he'd been at the beginning, whereas Silver was now badly burned, the synthetic flesh missing from the left side of his face and his left arm. His leather jacket had done a surprisingly good job of protecting his torso from burning, and had somewhat dampened the force of Gargoyle's strikes, but every time he cut Gargoyle, he simply sealed the wound with more "magma".

"This is futile, it really is!" Gargoyle laughed, "While you are clearly a pinnacle of strength, speed, dexterity, and martial discipline, you are also simply a reploid with a sword. You have no plasma weaponry, no "elemental" attacks, though that term is a misnomer: In short, you have nothing that could hurt me, so despite my rather limited combat abilities in the grand scheme of things, I am effectively invulnerable to anything you might try to throw at me, and that's not even counting my immortality thanks to the nanomachines in my body."

"… Do you ever shut up?" Silver growled, climbing painfully back to his feet.

"What did you expect? I'm a scientist! I even designed my own body, back while I was still just a Maverick Base AI. I actually used myself as a prototype for the nanite technology we stole from Dr. Setsura. And of course, I've always loved using artillery weapons to burn cities to the ground, so I just HAD to incorporate an incendiary component into the design of my body. But what I'm especially proud of is the internal core. You see most "Devil" type reploids and/or robots rely on a central, solid computer for power and manipulation. That of course is a weakness begging to be exploited, and in the past it was. But what Dr. Setsura discovered was that if a group of nanomachines were devoted only to thought, and another group only to power, why the resulting machine would be almost indestructible. Yes, it would still be vulnerable to electromagnetism, but a much higher voltage would be needed to inflict the same amount of damage, and even that wouldn't be permanent. But what I did, was use radiant heat, trapped within my body, as my power source, sealing it inside me when I wanted to save power, and releasing it into whatever system needed-"

Gargoyle was cut off by Silver's fist smashing into his face, cracking, but not penetrating, his stony skin.

"Dear _wuh de ma_, man! I have no idea what you're going on about, but I DON'T FUCKING CARE!"

With the sword still in hand, Silver unleashed a barrage of punches on Gargoyle, ignoring the rawness of his knuckles, and not maintaining contact long enough for his opponent's body temperature to burn him further. Whether or not he was actually inflicting any damage on Gargoyle was irrelevant to Silver. He just wanted to hurt him.

Given Gargoyle's reaction to the blows was to stagger back and groan, it seemed to be working.

Launching Gargoyle back with a spinning back kick to the throat, Silver pressed the attack, causing more and more small bits to fall off of Gargoyle's armor. Finally, after a particularly vicious crossing side-thrust kick, Gargoyle was forced back into a river. As his foot made contact with the water, steam immediately began to rise, accompanied by a loud, sharp hissing sound.

Seeing his opening, Silver immediately dropped into a sweep kick, dropping Gargoyle flat on his back in the waste-deep water. Before he could rise, Silver lifted the sword and drove it through his chest and into the stone riverbed, and held it in place, planting one foot on his chest for good measure. As he slammed his foot down, his sunglasses fell, revealing Silver's bright orange eyes.

* * *

Gargoyle struggled, trying to generate enough heat to evaporate the water around him, but he found that something was draining energy from his core as quickly as he was generating it. Still he continued to struggle, even as the heat energy that powered him flowed through of the cracks in his armor and out into the water.

Just as he felt the last of his strength fading, Gargoyle looked up through the water, and for a moment he could swear he was looking at Nightshade.

"… Couldn't be…" he gurgled. And yet, as he remembered staring up at Nightshade as he had pinned him to the floor seven years ago, the images were as close a match as they could be, given the distortion from the water.

And then, Gargoyle let out a weak gasp, and shut down, the last of his energy flowing out of his body.

* * *

Blaze awoke to the distant sound of birds outside. Looking around, she quickly realized, as the haze of drowsiness lifted, that she was back in her room, tucked into her bed. For a moment she wondered how she got there, trying to remember what had happened.

And then the enormity of what transpired the day before finally hit her, now that she had regained enough strength to devote to comprehending it. As memories of the 21st, both the fallen and the survivors, and her one memory of her father, and of course, Nightshade, flashed through her head in a maelstrom, she broke down and, for the first time in seven years wept, not in grief, but cathartic joy.

"… It's over… It's finally, REALLY over…" she whispered hoarsely through choked sobs.

Then, through the blur of tears, she saw her sword, cap, and sunglasses sitting on top of her dresser, a note tied to the blade.

"Sera,

Sorry about taking your sword without asking, and for wasting all the work you put into the Cheval. Hope you're up on your feet soon so we can get back to annoying the hell out of each other.

Silver."

Blaze couldn't help but laugh at the last sentence of the note. Drying the tears from her eyes, she morphed her armor, threw on her spare jumpsuit after retrieving it from her closet, grabbed her sunglasses and cap, and climbed out the window up to the roof.

As she perched on the roof's edge, she took in her surroundings. The sky had never seemed bluer. The grass was never greener. The sun was never more brilliant.

Everything about the world seemed more vibrant than it ever had.

Amazed at what a little closure, Blaze rolled up her sleeves, spreading her bare arms to the warm breeze.

And then she said something that for seven years she would have felt guilty saying.

"… Life's pretty good…"

"Amen to that," came a voice from below.

Leaning over, but still maintaining her balance, Blaze looked down to see Silver poking his head out of the window.

"Hey, Sera."

"… Hello Silver," Blaze said after a moment, "… Quite a day we had yesterday, wasn't it?"

"Indeed it was. And I think I understand now why it was you were so interested in the angel from my dreams."

Blaze almost choked. "… And why might that be?"

"I saw your true form. And you think it's possible that you and the angel are somehow connected, right?"

"… Yes," Blaze finally admitted, averting her eyes, since outright turning away was not an option in her current position. "Or at least, I did when you first mentioned it."

"Sounds like there's a story somewhere in that…"

"There is. It's a story that only eight people know the full scope of, and four of them are dead."

"I see…"

"… Would you like to come up? Because standing like this is getting kind of awkward. Which isn't to say I couldn't do it all day, but still…"

"Do you mind?"

"Not at all," Blaze smiled and reached out a hand, her other arm extending back toward the roof.

Silver reached out and took her hand, then yelped as she swung him out of the window and hauled him up by snapping her extended arm back, pulling herself to the roof's surface.

"Maybe it's just my imagination, but you seem much less passive-aggressive today," Silver said after securing his footing.

"… It isn't your imagination. Mostly it's because I'm not trying to work, though at this point you know my secret anyway, so hiding my methods from you would be largely pointless. Then again, maybe I'm just in a good mood because yesterday I finally got to avenge myself and my father on the Mavericks who killed us the day I was first activated, and made the subsequent eleven years of my life a living hell of phobias and neuroses. Or maybe I just feel as though I owe it you to be a bit nicer since you probably saved my life yesterday."

Silver was silent for a moment, then asked, "… What was that part about you getting killed, Sera?"

"… Have a seat, Silver," Blaze sighed, taking a seat next to him on the roof, "And by the way: My name is Blaze."

* * *

"-And so, after the funeral, I bolted, and I guess I was still a little…off, because I lost track of how much power I had used and ended up crashing in Cardon Forest, where Bolter and Snow found me. Since I didn't really have any plans, when they offered me a job fixing machines, I decided to take it, and see how I did. Turns out, I'm pretty good at it, so I've been here ever since."

"… That's…quite a life story you've got there. I don't think I could deal with all of that and come out sane."

"Silver, the first thing you learn as a Maverick Hunter is that 'sane' is a relative term."

"And you don't think you're ever going back to the Maverick Hunters?"

"I doubt it. I like it here. I like fixing things instead of breaking them, and I like not having the fate of other's resting on my actions. Now, if there's some big crisis in the future, and it seems like the Hunters need all the help they can get, then I'll probably go back into action as some kind of one-girl civilian militia. But no, I don't think I'm ever resuming my commission," Blaze sighed, "But what about you? What'll you do now that you have no money and no transportation? Don't you have to resume your search for that angel of yours?"

"… You know?" Silver began as he looked out at Kattelox, "I think you had the right idea. I could stand to stick around here for a bit. Not that I have a CHOICE in the matter, but I've spent my entire life, which, admittedly has only been seven years, wandering for no more reason than to find this angel, and I'm quite frankly sick of it."

"… How old did you say you were?"

"Unless my body was lying around inoperable for a long time before I was activated or I have some sort of amnesia, about seven years."

"… Have you ever been to the Arctic?" Blaze asked.

Silver raised one eyebrow at her before answering, "Not that I'm aware of. Although now that you mention it, I WAS first activated in Northern Russia. Still, that's a long way off from the Arctic. Why do you ask?"

"… No reason."

Silver found that HIGHLY unlikely. "Bullshit, Sera- Blaze."

"I just thought, for a moment, that maybe…" Blaze trailed off, looking up at the sky.

"… That maybe I was Nightshade reborn, or something?"

"Yeah. Pretty crazy, right?" Blaze laughed, but was obviously just a bit crushed by the false hope she had given herself, even if it was for a just a moment.

"… Not really. I mean, I've never known who built me. Obviously someone did it, and then for one reason or another, dumped me into the ocean. Or perhaps I DO have some sort of amnesia. Hell, maybe I AM Nightshade. No reason you can't hope, right?" Silver said with a grin.

"… No reason why I can't…" Blaze sighed, "… But there are plenty of reasons why I SHOULDN'T: It probably wouldn't be good for me to dwell on a false hope. Plus, if you WERE Nightshade, I'd have been able to tell the moment I laid eyes on you. Besides, to go on thinking you're 'Nightshade' wouldn't exactly be fair to 'Silver'. Still…"

Silver was about to say something to the effect of, "Hey, Nightshade sounds like a good enough person that I wouldn't mind being thought of as his possible resurrection."

But as he turned to say this, Blaze's lips met his in a somewhat awkward collision. Still, Blaze at least maintained enough composure to adjust and give him the light kiss on the cheek she had apparently been going for.

"… Thanks for being so willing to humor a crazy girl's romantic notions of rebirth… And since I don't think I've actually said it properly yet, thanks for saving my life…"

Silver had never blushed in his entire life, but that did it. His eyes were wide for a moment, before he shook his head, flustered by what had just happened. "Uh… You're welcome, Blaze-!"

Suddenly, he felt a tingling in his lips that slowly grew, until it felt as though his lips were numb. Gradually, however, the feeling began to spread outward, consuming his entire body.

But it wasn't just his nerves: His skull felt like it was on fire, and his brain was spinning, as though it was being startled awake…over and over again.

"… GyAAAARGH!"

* * *

Blaze could only watch with confusion as Silver stumbled to his feet, clutching his head. Activating her scanner, she was surprised to see that an orange glow was spreading throughout Silver's entire body, from the head down. Deactivating it and returning to normal vision, she saw his skin color rapidly fluctuating, his body shape shifting, causing his clothing to stretch and tear. Realizing he was about to stumble right off of the roof, Blaze reached out and grabbed his waist, holding him steady, her wings extending out through the back of her jumpsuit, morphing into claws, and holding onto the roof, as Silver lurched forward, driving both his weight and Blaze's towards the edge, prompting Blaze to hold on tighter. It was unlikely that the fall would harm either of them, but it still wouldn't be pleasant, especially with Silver in such a state as he was.

Then suddenly, bolts of alternating crimson and gold electricity began to flash across Silver's body, and consequently, into Blaze as well, causing her claws to spasm and release their grip. As another wave of electricity shot through them, Silver lurched forward again, sending both he and Blaze off the roof and to the ground with a heavy thud.

Blaze rolled off of Silver as the shock went through her, but she quickly righted herself, spinning into a crouch and turning back to Silver, whose entire body had taken on a steel gray color. Scrambling to his inert form, she cried out, "Are you alright?! Silver?! SILVER?!"

She breathed a sigh of relief as he stirred. Reaching up, he removed his dark sunglasses, which had somehow remained on his face.

Blaze's breath caught in her throat as he did.

Beneath his sunglasses, Silver's eyes glowed a fiery orange, or to be more accurate, they glowed crimson overlaid with a gold hue.

"It's been a long time, Blaze…" he spoke, in a voice that was not quite what it had once been, but still had a familiar, distant intonation.

Blaze could have died from shock right then and there. The reploid before her had a body entirely the color of polished pewter, and was encased in full body armor of the same color. His hair was longer and less spiky than it had once been, and had streaks and patches of dull silver. His face was unchanged, however, and without the large sunglasses, she recognized it instantly.

"… Nightshade?"

"Yeah, Blaze. I'm back."

"… How is it… I mean you… What is this…?" Blaze half-murmured, half-sputtered.

Smiling, Nightshade rose to his feet and offered her his hand. Blaze stared at it for a moment, still in disbelief.

"… Have I finally gone _feng le_?" she asked as she finally reached up and took his hand, "And if I have, am I the catatonic kind of crazy, or the wandering kind of crazy, because if it's the latter, I really think I should stop moving…"

"Blaze, I'm not qualified to tell you whether or not you're crazy, but you aren't delusional."

"… Then you're…really back?"

Nightshade simply nodded.

"… And here I was just starting to move on with my life. I hate to say it, but your timing did always kind of s-suck," Blaze tried to laugh, before reaching out and wrapping her arms around his shoulders, her body shuddering. "… I really, really missed you, Nightshade," she whispered.

Returning her embrace, Nightshade whispered back, "I missed you too, _bao bei_." After a moment he added, "… Retroactively, mind you, since the entire time I spent as 'Silver' was spent without any memory of my past life."

"… So, I really WAS the angel."

"You still are, Blaze."

"… How is this possible? I mean, you died and… and…" Blaze suddenly backed up from him slightly, just enough to look at him eye-to-eye and ask, "… Are you still… You know, with the purifying the planet?"

"I'm a reploid."

Blaze raised one eyebrow, "Okay, I let you get away with the unnecessary cryptic-ness when you were a voice in my head because I thought I was going insane from grief. Since you're here, I'm gonna have to ask that you be straight with me."

"… Since you just asked me a few moments ago if you were going insane, I don't think the conditions have changed," Nightshade countered, in the oh-so-familiar, matter-of-fact voice.

"As precise as always, huh Nightshade?" Blaze sighed happily.

"Actually, no. I actually kind of miss having a subconscious that functions like, well, a computer. Still… I'd give it up for free will any day."

And then Blaze understood what he had meant by, "I'm a reploid." Then she stepped back, and realized why the changes had still seemed so familiar.

"… You rebuilt yourself using my design as a base, didn't you?"

"Yes, more or less. If it makes you uncomfortable, I can downplay the cosmetic similarities."

"… It's fine, though I am sort of wondering why you incorporated a monochrome version of the ridiculous hair coloration my dad gave me.

"Well to be fair," Nightshade pleaded, with some indignation, "I was dying at the time. I had to work quickly."

"… Right… The dying…" Blaze said, looking at the ground, reminded of her part in all of this.

"Blaze, don't you think that it's high time you stopped blaming yourself for that?"

"Everyone who actually knows what happened keeps telling me that."

"Well, now the guy you killed is telling you that. I'd also say I forgive you, but that would imply that I think you did anything wrong by it in the first place. Let it go."

"…"

"Okay, if I hadn't wanted you to kill me, do you think I would have told you that emotions would kill me?"

"… That really WAS you?"

"… Yes. The nanites from my body that remained inside you did still contain my programming."

"… And you lied about that, making me think I was losing my mind and hearing voices," Blaze said, her eyes narrowing.

"Actually, I was kinda hoping you would assume I was your conscience or something, but I didn't have time to establish myself, what with my omnicidal body being able to track me, and all."

"… Do you mind if we go inside? I think I need to lie down," Blaze sighed, shifting her claws back into wings and floating up to her window.

"Understandable. It isn't every day that people come back from the dead," Nightshade responded, his anti-gravity generators lifting him up after her.

* * *

"It started when you struck down my body. When you transferred my nanites back into it, you also sent the last of my programming. I couldn't take hold because the nanites were collapsing as quickly as I was spread by them. But there was something even I had failed to consider. The nanites from your body, though completely wiped of your consciousness, were still physically within my body, and could in fact handle reploid programming, as evidenced by their adaptation of my new design. I realized that I could use them to reform myself, but I also realized that my directives might survive with me. So I quickly cobbled together a self-erasing regeneration program, so that I would be regenerated as a reploid, and then immediately forget how to regenerate at all. I locked all of my memories and ability to manipulate my nanites, consciously or otherwise into one of yours, then sent it to you as you kissed me goodbye, along with one of my blank nanites, which I might add was a challenge, since my nanites were self-destructing one by one. By doing so I ensured that when I was reborn, if I was still a danger, I could be easily neutralized. Then I created the dream of an 'Angel' using my most recent memory of you, and hardwired it with the impulse to move in the direction of my missing piece. Once, or rather IF I found you, then I would be drawn to interact with you, either prompting you to kill me, befriend me, or completely ignore me, whichever was most appropriate given my personality. And if, by some miracle, you saw fit to kiss me, for whatever reason, then my program would transfer back to me, restoring my memories and abilities."

"… So really, you were expecting to never remember who you were." Blaze said, in utter disbelief of what she had just heard. She was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling, while Nightshade sat beside her on the edge, having finished relating his resurrection.

"I figured it would be prudent to only have very specific conditions under which I would ever be restored to full power, given the threat I potentially represented."

"And you didn't think you owed it to me to at least make the possibility of coming back to me even REMOTELY reasonable?"

"When there was such a high likelihood that that would lead to you having to kill me again? No. I thought I had burdened you with enough."

"You didn't burden me with anything, Nightshade. The ones responsible for this are all dead now."

"Yes… I feel somewhat responsible for that. I honestly thought I had killed them when I destroyed the lab seven years ago."

"… Well, I'm actually kind of glad you didn't. It actually felt good, getting even with them. Especially Ursa."

"Yes, he was a nasty piece of work, wasn't-"

"Okay, can we stop this?" Blaze interrupted, "It's been seven years, and now that we've established how it is that you're alive, and that the shock has worn off from the revelation, we've run out of things to say."

"… Well, I admit I am finding it hard to come up with the words to properly express-"

"And I know why we can't find anything to say, too. We've been apart for seven years. You've spent most, no, ALL of that time as a different person, and I spent most of the first few years trying to move on. Not that I'm not glad that you're alive, but I was only partly kidding when I said that I had moved on, Nightshade."

"… Wait… What do you mean?" Nightshade looked genuinely confused.

Blaze sat up and got off the bed, heading towards the door. "Didn't you notice the tension between me and Snow? I hit it off quite well with him once I started working here."

Nightshade stared at her for a moment, before raising one eyebrow.

"… You're fucking with me, aren't you?"

Blaze burst out laughing, spinning around and closing the gap between them until her face was mere millimeters from his.

"Of COURSE I'm fucking with you, _bao bei_! Now come on! Let's go get some breakfast!" she almost shouted, grabbing Nightshade's hands and pulling him to his feet, "So, how's this for a day; we go downstairs and get breakfast; dig out a jumpsuit that'll fit you, and while we're at it find me a spare one that doesn't have holes from my wings sticking through it; work for a few hours fixing machines, finishing early because between the two of us it'll be easier than usual, and trust me that's saying something; and then we can go out for dinner to this nice little pub that does great fish 'n chips, and get drunk off our asses. Sound good?"

"… I'm going to be a mechanic?" Nightshade asked after a moment of staring at her with his mouth open.

"Of course you are, _chai neow_. You honestly think Spectro's gonna give you a room if you aren't bringing in money?" Blaze laughed again, walking Nightshade toward the door, hands still entwined with his

"… I assumed I was staying here with you."

"Well then you assumed wrong. Sorry, but our trial-by-fire romance aside, we really haven't known each other long enough for that, and I'm not the sort of girl who lets guys she's only known for a day share a bed with her. No matter HOW much in love she is with him"

Nightshade finally joined her in laughing. It was awkward, as if he weren't quite sure how to do it, but it was a sign of mirth nonetheless.

Just as they reached the door, she stopped. "Oh, before we go down there, you should probably change your appearance, 'Silver'."

"Got it, 'Sera'," Nightshade replied, using quickly modifying his long-unused camouflage system into a chameleon circuit as Blaze had so many years ago, turning himself back into Silver, complete with the same wardrobe. He even managed to accurately recreate the damage his clothes had suffered yesterday.

"You sure you'll be okay with your clothes like that?"

"As long as nobody touches me, they shouldn't notice they're made of solid metal. What about you? Won't your coworkers wonder what happened if you go downstairs with the back of your jumpsuit torn open?"

"Probably. But then again I make a habit of not telling them anything, so if I ignore them long enough, they'll stop asking. Also, they'll probably assume that kinky things went down between us, but what they think isn't my business."

"… I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with that…"

"What they might think, or the fact that I'm comfortable with whatever those aforementioned thoughts are?" Blaze grinned.

Nightshade returned her grin, and answered, "Both."

"Fair enough," Blaze said, threading the filaments of nanites that were normally used to form her armor through her jumpsuit, mending it. "Shall we?" she asked, opening the door.

"Of course," Nightshade answered, gesturing for her to go first. "You know, it occurs to me that there's something I never told you, directly, and I feel that I should."

"And what might that be-?!" Blaze let out a yelp as Nightshade grasped her shoulders and spun her to face him before giving her a kiss.

"I love you, Blaze," he whispered.

"I love you too, Nightshade," she answered without missing a beat.

* * *

And that's really all that needs to be said, except…

My love of reviews has not diminished in any way, so let me have it with both barrels.

And since this is the (true) end of the story, I suppose I should also reiterate that I hoped you enjoyed this little tale.


	19. Original Ending: The Answer

ATTENTION: THIS IS THE *ALTERNATE* VERSION OF THE ENDING.

I never thought this ending was all that great. I didn't HATE it, but I always felt I could have done better. Nonetheless, for posterity's sake, I left it here as a "deleted scene" of sorts. Let me know whether you actually think this ending is better, or if you agree that the new ending is an improvement over this.

*Note, this takes the place of the last TWO Chapters, just in case anyone was thinking they had the funeral twice. Also, I still gave it a few edits, just because.

.yojnE ,weiveR ,daeR ...

**My Stuff © Me**

**Megaman X Series © Capcom

* * *

**

Blaze inhaled deeply, taking in the frigid mountain air. The sunlight reflecting off of the snow would be enough to damage the eyes of a human not wearing any sunglasses or goggles. The sound of her footfalls cracking the ice echoed off of the craggy face of the peak.

Blaze smiled almost unconsciously. It was peaceful here.

It had been 7 years to the day since she had left the Maverick Hunters. She still remembered the look on Signas's face when he had read her report.

* * *

"To think that they could create a being so powerful without our knowledge…" the Hunter General said distantly, staring at the data pad which displayed Blaze's final report on the incident.

"They won't try anything like that again," Blaze noted, "A guy that powerful can't be controlled. It just turns into _tian fuhn di fu_."

"And you possess the same power as he did?"

"Actually… Given how many combat reploid's I've been in contact with since the battle, I'm willing to bet that I'm actually stronger than he was."

"… Remind me never to get on your bad side, Commander."

"I wouldn't worry, sir…"

"And why not?"

"Sir…" Blaze paused, preparing her request, "I… I can't do this anymore. I'd like to submit my resignation from the Maverick Hunters, effective immediately."

"Are you sure, Commander?"

"I am, General. I just… I can't handle it any more."

"… As you wish, then, Commander Blaze. You are now off of the Maverick Hunter Active Register."

"Thank you, sir."

* * *

Looking down at the small village at the base of the mountain, Blaze took another deep breath, flexed her back, and then took a running leap off of the nearest ledge. She let herself free-fall for a few moments before spreading her wings. Feeling a bit adventurous that day, Blaze swooped down near the ground before rising back up into the sky. As she did, she reaffirmed one of her strongest beliefs:

Flying was a lot more relaxing when nobody was shooting hot plasma at you.

As she floated through the clouds, Blaze's thoughts turned to Kingfisher, and by extension, the rest of the 21st Unit.

* * *

Blaze sighed as she listened to the traditional Maverick Hunter Eulogy. Around her stood the surviving members of the 21st, all looking upon the pyres that held the remains of Dust and Strike, alongside two empty pyres for Omicron and Firestorm. The names, ranks, date of activation, and date of retirement of each Hunter were etched into the pedestals of their pyres, alongside a holographic image of them, so that the pyres themselves would serve as a grave. In the center of the pyres, there was also a small metal plate embedded in the ground, bearing Lifesaver's Unit Number.

Blaze's mind trailed off, and she silently hoped that it wasn't an affront to the dead to be thinking of Nightshade, even at a time like this. Her grief was still painful enough that she had considered emotional counseling on the subject, but knew she couldn't. Nightshade was officially on the Maverick Hunter Threat Board, occupying a space just below Vava.

It didn't help that the number two cause for turning Maverick, next to the Sigma Virus, was a strong attachment to an individual who had gone Maverick. Given how powerful she had become, Signas had done her an ENORMOUS favor by not requiring her to remain under surveillance. Given that their mental link was already on record, Signas had had to pull some MAJOR strings to do her this favor. If the TRUE extent of their relationship ever became known, she'd likely end up under house arrest, at the very least.

She hadn't even been able to tell the others in the 21st how she'd really felt, thought she had a feeling that some of them had suspected it. Out of respect, they were keeping it to themselves, if they DID know.

She was brought back to reality as the pyres were ignited, blue-hot flames incinerating Dust and Strike's bodies almost instantly. The pyres for Omicron and Firestorm also released a single blast of flame. Then, all four pyres went out, only lit by the glow of the holograms built into them. Another moment of respectful silence passed before the Hunters began to disperse, returning to their duties. Only Blaze, Smith, Kingfisher, and Sharp remained.

"So, are you really leaving, Commander?" Kingfisher asked as Blaze approached.

"… Yeah, Fisher… I'm leaving," Blaze answered solemnly.

"Sorry to hear that, Commander," Smith said, munching slowly on a carrot.

"You'll be missed," Slate rumbled.

Due to the partial failure of his control chip, Slate's reflexes and coordination were no longer up to Maverick Hunter standards. As a result, he had been given an honorary discharge from the combat force. Since he'd always been a part of the Maverick Hunters, however, he'd chosen to take a spot in a construction team with very close ties to the Maverick Hunters. His great strength and cool head would therefore still continue to aid the Hunters.

"Take care of yourself, Commander," Smith said, saluting.

Blaze returned the salute with a small smile. "You too, Commander Smith. The Hunters need guys like you."

After his revival, Smith had received a promotion to Commander for his actions during the battle with Nightshade. Since Blaze would no longer be serving with the Hunters, Smith had been placed in Command of the 21st, which was being reassigned to the Abel City HQ.

Blaze then turned to Kingfisher, offering her a final salute as well.

Kingfisher was still for a moment, before she broke down crying and grabbed Blaze in a bear hug. "God dammit, Commander! Why do you have to leave, you big sack of hammers?!"

"Easy, Fisher…" Blaze said softly, trying to calm Kingfisher, "… You're crushing me, Fisher…"

Kingfisher still would not release her.

"Oh, _mei yong ma duh tse gu yong_, let me breath, _tzao gao_!" Blaze shoved Kingfisher's arms off of her, but then gave the sobbing ice bird a significantly gentler hug of her own. "_Wuh de ma_, Fisher. It isn't like we're never going to see each other again."

"… I'm fucking holding you to that."

"Fair enough. Just try and keep the Unit from completely falling apart."

Kingfisher, being the highest ranking combat-ready survivor of the 21st apart from Smith, was given the position of Executive Officer. Some Hunters had seen the decision as a sign of the coming Apocalypse.

Blaze then turned to he last member of the 21st who still lived, and froze, trying to figure out what to say.

Sharp simply stared at her more or less blankly.

"Sharp… I dunno what to say…"

"Me neither, Commander Blaze," Sharp answered, "I mean, you saved my life, but for the life of me I don't even remember your face. It still seems familiar, and I know that I SHOULD recognize your face, but I can't nail it. So… Sorry… I guess…"

"Don't be. It was my fault anyway…" Blaze answered, saluting him, "And the only time you would have seen me, I would have been…less than recognizable." Blaze decided not to mention that she had been dead at the time.

Sharp had been brought up to speed on all of the events that had transpired in the Arctic, and the key points of his memory that had been lost. Still, it was all second-hand information to him, since only a tiny amount of it had actually been restored as his own memories. He could only see the rest of it as someone else's story. He still believed it, but he couldn't quite identify with it on a personal level. Without any other place for him, he had been returned to the 21st.

"I guess…this is goodbye, guys…" Blaze sighed remorsefully as she turned.

"You could always visit," Sharp offered.

"… Maybe someday… But right now…" Blaze said, her eyes becoming moist, "… Right now, I just need…"

"Go on. It's a sad enough day without watching you cry," Smith said, giving a last salute that the rest of the team fell in behind.

"_Sheh sheh_, guys," Blaze bowed deeply, then turned to the sky.

And with that, she spread her wings and took off as her first tear hit the ground.

* * *

She had brought no luggage, as her only possession after the battle with Nightshade was her katana. The Molotov Cocktail had been destroyed, and her revolver had been assimilated into her systems. Only her father's ancestral sword's blade remained separate from her: the handle and scabbard too were now a part of her. Normally when going to town, she left the blade in the small "bunker" that she had taken up residence in. Today, however, she had decided to bring the blade with her. She wasn't sure why, but she felt more comfortable keeping it close.

Blaze decided that she had had enough of the skies for the time being, and began her descent to the field below. As she landed, she changed her appearance, retracting her wings, and morphing her armor into something resembling civilian clothing: a black tank top, gray cargo pants, black and red sneakers, and a red long coat. She also changed her skin back to its original pale, flesh color, restored the original "cracked lava" color of her hair, and dimmed the glow of her eyes. The color of her hair and eyes still drew looks, but she liked the look enough that she didn't change it. Finally, she hid her sword inside the lining of her coat.

Blaze walked the rest of the way to town, not wanting to attract undue attention. She had no doubts that most of the people who knew her had figured out that she was a reploid, but there seemed to be no reason to let them know that she was a combat reploid.

Kattelox was quiet and, compared to Abel City or Sky Lagoon before the destruction of the latter at the hands of Magma Dragoon and Eregion, was quite primitive. Many of the buildings had been built during the days of brick-and-mortar construction, and most of the vehicles still had wheels. It wasn't entirely devoid of technology, but most of it predated the era of reploids, having been developed back in 20XX.

Hell, the most modern technology in town was its reploid population.

Kattelox was mostly inhabited by humans who worked in agriculture down in the plains, but due to the numerous caverns in the surrounding mountains, miners weren't at all uncommon, and most, if not all of the reploids in the town were employed as such. Very few of them were fighters by design, however, and they mostly lived like humans, maintaining jobs in the community, owning houses, socializing, and so on.

As Blaze entered the town's borders, she set a course straight for the local pub. It was a small, somewhat run-down looking building, being amongst the oldest buildings Kattelox had, and so sections of the original brick construction had been replaced with concrete and steel over the years it had weathered.

Still, as far as Blaze was concerned, it was a nice place. It was kind of rundown, but it was homey. The lighting was comfortable, the food was good, and the crowds, even at their loudest, were never too rowdy.

"Hello, Blaze," the barkeep, a man who was called simply, Bob, greeted her as the plated metal doors slid apart for her. A few of the other patron's noticed her, and offered short waves. "What'll it be?"

"… The usual."

Bob smirked. "Got it. The tea'll be ready in a few."

"No. I'm sorry, I should have specified, the usual for TODAY."

"… Ah yes."

Bob quickly mixed the drink, producing one absurdly-tall mug full of red liquid, before setting the top on fire.

Blaze quietly thanked Bob, and handed him a few zenny. It was more than enough for a single drink. After paying the barkeep, she silently made her way over to the table in the back corner, massive steel mug in hand. The table had been unofficially reserved for her almost since the first time she had entered the pub. Very rarely was she ever bothered. A couple times in the past, some guys she'd drawn glances from had tried to step up past a glance, and she'd pummeled them. She'd never seriously injured anybody though…except for that one guy who'd gotten…grabby. Oh well.

Reploids can get their limbs reattached.

But those incidents had more or less stopped, and people respected her personal space. Blaze was happy about that.

As Blaze thought about it, the reason she liked the pub was that it offered her the perfect line between interaction and presence of others. Nightshade's description of her simultaneous antisocial and dependent natures slowly echoed in her mind, "Your response to these conflicting psychological aspects is to remain on the sidelines, avoiding contact, but remaining in the presence of those around you."

"Truer words were never spoken, Nightshade," Blaze murmured under her breath, raising her drink slightly in a toast, and taking a sip of the burning red liquor. Since she was a reploid, the heat from the flames didn't bother her at all, nor did the mug itself, which would have caused 3rd degree burns to a human.

As she looked around at all of the other patrons, who were either talking amongst themselves, or just enjoying each other's company, Blaze amended her statement.

"… Actually, there WERE truer words spoken," she took another sip, already feeling the connection between her cognitive circuit and motor circuits becoming interrupted by the alcohol. "And if the words in mind weren't ever said aloud, then they will be now. I love you, Nightshade. And I really fucking miss you…"

Blaze hadn't even finished a quarter of her drink, but she was already feeling a fairly strong buzz.

"Guess I still can't hold liquor very well…" Blaze mumbled to herself.

* * *

Several hours passed like this, as Blaze continued to slowly sip her drink. She had become a regular in the pub, but she normally only drank tea or, at her most adventurous, coffee. Still, once a year, she made an exception, and this was that day. It was the anniversary of Nightshade's death. On this day, instead of wallowing in sober despair for the better part of a day, she wallowed in DRUNKEN despair for the better part of a day.

She sighed deeply, huddling up her knees into the booth. Always alone in a pub, though admittedly a NICE pub, searching her soul for the answer the question she had asked herself 7 years ago. How was she supposed to go on without Nightshade?

"… And it still eludes me…" Blaze mumbled. As peaceful as it as here, as friendly as Katellox's community was to her, and as much time as she had to soul search, she still felt empty inside.

"7_ tzao gao_ years… and all I can think about is how much I miss Nightshade…" Blaze ragged on herself, "… I'm so pathetic…"

Suddenly, Blaze began to feel someone watching her. Slowly, she raised her mug up as if to take a sip, while surreptitiously checking the pub for anyone she didn't recognize.

… There. In the opposite corner of the pub, Blaze's gaze met with that of a cloaked figure whose cowl concealed their features, especially since the low level of light in the pub expanded the shadow cast by the hood, so that Blaze couldn't even see enough of the person's face to determine their gender. All she could see were two fiery orange eyes burning from under the shadow of the cloak.

Cautiously setting her drink down, Blaze activated her scanners, to try and determine what this person was. She was barely able to suppress a yelp of surprise when the scanner registered the cloak as channeling energy. Normally, the scanner used the flow of electrical energy to analyze how systems functioned. The chaotic flow of power in the cloak meant that all she saw was a mass of orange light.

She deactivated her scanners, continuing to act like she hadn't seen the cloaked figure. She occasionally glanced over at them, seeing them taking a sip from a glass filled with red wine. This continued for several more minutes, until Blaze saw the individual wave at her.

"… What the _guai_?"

Blaze set her mug down and turned in her seat to look directly at him, meeting his gaze with a scowl. Since the individual knew that she had seen them, Blaze decided there was no point in trying to hide it.

"If they want a staring contest, then _ta ma duh_, they'll get one."

* * *

Before Blaze knew it, the afternoon had already faded through evening into night. Still, neither Blaze nor the mysterious stranger had moved except to drink. Many of the pub's patrons had already left, leaving the two more or less alone. And by this point, Blaze was THOROUGHLY drunk.

And she had decided that she'd had enough of the cloaked one. She slammed her now-empty mug down and stood up, slowly stumbling over to the stranger's table. They stared at her, seemingly unimpressed by the pissed-off look in her eyes.

"Okay, pal. You've been staring at me all _tzao gao_ night. What the hell do you want?"

"Not quite sure, actually," the stranger replied in a raspy, distorted voice. It was definitely male, and the distortion seemed mechanical, which heavily implied that the guy was a reploid. "It really depends on what you want."

"… I want you to leave me the _guai_ alone, or if you're here for a fight, then to just say so and attack."

"First, let me make it abundantly clear that I'm not here to fight, especially since you'd probably beat me with ease. Second, what I meant by 'what you want' was 'what you want in the grand scheme of things', not 'what you want at this very moment'."

"… I don't want anything except to live out the rest of my life in peace."

"Please. We both know that's _go se_. Everyone has a desperate need for something beyond peace in life. And besides, if you DID have everything you wanted, my presence wouldn't be such an aggravation to you."

"… You were staring at me… for at least 6 hours. How do I know that isn't a sign of some sick desire to _gun_ me?" Blaze growled, admittedly somewhat thrown off by the stranger's use of Mandarin.

"May I remind you that YOU were staring at ME for 5 hours and 52 minutes?" the stranger noted. "Besides, as painfully _kuh ai_ as I find you, Blaze-"

As soon as she heard her name escape the stranger's lips, Blaze's sword was drawn and pointed at his throat. "How do you know my name, _go neong yung duh_?!"

"-I have no intention of raping you," the stranger finished, nervously. Seeing that her sword was still pointed at his neck, he repeated, "Seriously. NO intention of raping you," putting extra emphasis on "no".

"… Answer the question. _Ma shong_."

"… Fine. Under one condition: you answer my question first."

"… What I want most? What my deepest desire is? And what business is it of yours?"

"Not sure. If you enlighten me as to what your desire is, then I'll be able to tell you what it has to do with me, if anything at all."

"… Why are you so convinced I want anything more than for you to _tze sh'un tze mieh_?"

"… It's the look in your eyes. You're pretty _tzao gao_ miserable. You've lost something more important to you than your own life. Or maybe someONE…"

Blaze was taken aback. This guy had hit the nail on the head.

"… It's a really old story…"

"Sometimes the old stories are the best stories."

Blaze couldn't help but chuckle at that retort. Suddenly, she didn't hate this guy quite so much. What the hell? Why not?

"Fair enough… 7 years ago, I was a Maverick Hunter. I was given command of a team assigned to the Arctic. It turns out there was also a Maverick Lab hidden there, where they were building whom could only be described as the ultimate killer. During the fighting, he and I ended up becoming mentally linked. Basically, he became the closest thing I've ever had to a _kai tze_. And I guess I was a _ma tze_ of sorts to him. But, he wasn't a reploid. He was a robot, and that meant that whatever he was programmed to do was what he did, no matter what feelings he developed about it. In his case, his programming was to kill. I ended up having to kill him, and now I really hate myself." Blaze lowered her sword and sunk to the table, folding her arms over it and burying her face in them.

"… The "ultimate killer" must have been very hard to kill…"

"…" Blaze nodded, not looking up.

"… If he were alive, what would you do? Would you kill him again, to protect the world?"

"… I quit being a Maverick Hunter because I couldn't bring myself to do it again if that happened… I could put aside my personal feelings about him to save the world once. Never again…" Blaze briefly wondered if the stranger had heard her through the table.

"… And if he were free from his compulsive murderousness?"

Blaze, without even looking, had her blade again pointed at his head. "That's your second strike. _Yeh lu jwo duo luh jwohn whei jian guay_. Now…" Blaze sat up from the table, "I told you what it is that I want."

"Well… actually… you haven't…"

"Let me spell it out for you then… I. Want. Him. Back." Blaze inched her face slightly closer, still holding her sword to his throat, with ever word.

"Even if he were still a killing machine?"

Blaze sighed, realizing what the real question was. "If that were the case… I'd take him far away, and do whatever I could to keep him under control. Even if that meant fighting him for the rest of my life, without pause… I'd be happier than I am now…"

"… Right then," the stranger said, hesitantly. "… I have a story for you then, Blaze, since you were gracious enough to tell me yours."

"… I'm listening."

"It begins with the death of a boy, who had no control over his actions, and could only allow himself to be destroyed. His closest, and perhaps only friend, introduced his mind to a level of thought that he couldn't handle, and the understanding destroyed his body. But, before his death, a light awoke within him. Specifically, it awoke within his right hand. Because of the light, the boy was able to say goodbye to his friend before his body faded away. Even after his physical form was destroyed, however, this light remained, for it could understand the thoughts and feelings given to it. The light was not his, for he had accidently taken it from his friend. Still, it had allowed him to make it his, and so the light was able to slowly, over the course of a year, rebuild the boy's body, incorporating both the knowledge and memories of the boy and the feelings and emotions of his friend into a new form. The light had freed him, and had allowed him to choose his own way. Then, with the image of his friend's face still in his mind, and her last words to him still in his ears, he left the land of ice and long nights to find her."

"You _bu hui hen de puo fu_,what did I JUST tall you about taunting me like that?!" Blaze snarled, grabbing the cloaked reploid by the collar of his cloak. "You have EXACTLY 5 seconds to convince me not to kill you, and I'll tell you right now, I'm VERY drunk, and NOT being rational in ANY way, so _yo hua kwai suo_."

"That sword probably won't be enough to kill me?" the stranger offered.

Blaze simply grew angrier. "You have 3 seconds left. Try again."

"… The story isn't just a story?" the stranger said, hesitantly.

"… Nightshade's alive?" Blaze asked, her grip loosening somewhat. "If you're lying, then I'll make you suffer SO horribly-"

"… He is alive."

Blaze immediately jerked the stranger's collar while simultaneously lunging forward so that they were face-to-face, their noses almost touching. "Where?!"

"He's about 0.05 centimeters in front of you," the stranger said, his voice no longer distorted. Without putting any distance between them, he reached up and drew back the hood of his cloak, revealing a familiar face with skin the color of polished steel, and hair that was almost black, but still bore faded streaks and patches of gunmetal gray.

"… Nightshade?!" Blaze asked in disbelief.

Before Blaze could regain her composure, Nightshade closed the very short distance between them and kissed her. Blaze's eyes widened even more for a moment, before slowly closing as she lost herself in the kiss. Letting her sword clatter to the floor, she wrapped her arms around Nightshade's neck so tightly that were he of lesser physical being, she would have crushed his spine.

Their lips remained pressed together for what felt like hours, until they finally parted, still holding each other.

"… I missed you so much, Nightshade…" Blaze murmured, burying her face in Nightshade's shoulder.

"I missed you too, Blaze…" Nightshade whispered, leaning his cheek on the top of her head.

"… I'm sorry… about what I did to you…" Blaze said hoarsely, beginning to cry for the first time in 7 years as the emotions she had bottled up for all that time began to finally emerge.

"Don't be. You may have killed me, but, as I said, you also saved me…" Nightshade answered softly into her ear. "Like you, I'm now free to do as I wish. And my only wish for these past 7 years… has been to be with you, Blaze."

"… You're with me now…" Blaze cried almost inaudibly, "And I'm with you. Forever."

"… Forever, Blaze. I love you."

Blaze smiled as she hugged Nightshade tighter. Maybe she'd never know how she was supposed to keep living without Nightshade.

But now she'd never have to.

"I love you too, Nightshade…"

* * *

Well, there's the original ending of the story. Kinda sappy, but I'm not gonna pretend the new ending isn't the same way.

As always, reviews are deeply appreciated.


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